Toddler falls in gorilla pit

civvver

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http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/29/us/cincinnati-zoo-gorilla-shot/

So this 3 year old kid at the Cincinnati zoo climb over/under a barrier, through some bushes and fell into a moat with a gorilla in it. The gorilla hung out with him for a bit but then decided to pull him around like a rag doll, for whatever reason. Maybe it was playing, I don't know. Eventually the authorities shot the gorilla.

Now everyone on social media is in an uproar, on the mild side saying things like shame on the parent for not watching their kid close enough. Then a little spicier, saying the parents should be investigated for child endangerment. And on the oh my said saying they should've let the kid die rather than shoot the gorilla. A lot of people are saying they should've tranq'd the gorilla or gotten the kid away cus we don't know if the kid would've died or not, but some are actually saying screw the kid let the kid die over the gorilla.

I've read a couple sides and it seems like the mom was overwhelmed watching too many kids and her 3 year old just took off and fell into the pit. No one around noticed until too late. Sounds like a tragic accident.

The thing is, anyone who has children knows that sometimes they just don't freakin' listen. My daughter is a really good kid most of the times but yeah, she's ran into the street before and I've had to chase her and give her punishment after for not following the rules. Of course if I was walking down a main road that was busy I'd be holding her arm, so there is a level of awareness you have to have. Most people don't think of a zoo as being a dangerous place though. I think if you charge the mom though you have to start charging parents for all the dumb stuff they do on a regular basis. Are you going to indict every parent who's kid has jumped off the couch and broken an arm cus they weren't on top of them in a dangerous situation? Or how about parents who don't install car seats correctly or buckle their kids in tight enough and they die in car accidents? Should they be criminally negligent? I think this case is just getting more attention cus hey a cool gorilla died.

Which brings me to my last point, how could anyone in their right mind think a gorilla's life is more important than a child's? I just don't really get it. People will get severely bent out of shape over something like this or killing a dog or pet, but if it were like a cute little cow being killed to make a burger they have to qualms about it. Animals are animals, and yes there is personal attachment and emotion but on a macro level they're not as important as people. Environmentally we need to have concerns about upsetting our eco system, like when settlers over hunted buffalo and they almost went extinct, but I don't think killing a gorilla in a zoo to save a kid's life is on that level.

It was a sad accident but the reaction is just astounding.
 
Well, one argument would be that the western lowland gorilla is critically endangered and killing even a single individual could jeopardize the whole subspecies, whereas there are an absurd number of humans and we can easily afford to lose one.

A lot of people don't particularly like kids, or humans as a whole, and would be perfectly fine with that swap. They'd probably not think that if it was their kid, or some kid they knew, but we don't value strangers' lives anywhere near as highly.
 
First off, they should have had proper double caging to prevent the boy getting in.

Secondly, they should have sent a keeper familiar to the gorilla into the enclosure to
manage the extraction of the boy.

Thirdly in the absence of the above, I do not blame them for shooting the gorilla.

Fourthly, I think the gorilla thought it was protecting the boy from the noisy hominids.
 
I'd blame whatever fencing was around this pit rather than anything else. With an animal as potentially dangerous as a gorilla you should at least have something that takes enough effort to get through/over no matter age or size that someone would notice before they get in.

Assuming gorillas are similar to tigers and such where they are seriously endangered in the wild, but actually overbred in captivity, I would say shoot it first chance you get a clear shot, if endangered in captivity as well, yeah try to tranquilize it or something and kill as last option.

Not related, but this reminds me a bit about the woman in Sweden who entered a wolf enclosure because she thought she a "spiritual connection" with them or something. Ended up being the first confirmed person to be eaten by wolves in over 100 years.
 
It was a sad accident but the reaction is just astounding.
You haven't spent enough time watching social media if you find those reactions "astounding". ;) People will go insane over anything these days, and make assumptions to draw conclusions without any hesitation. It's sad, but that's how it is.

For the story itself... yeah, it's a sad one. Tragic that an animal had to die because of an accident.
 
In keeping with my rant:

Trolley Problem- Gorilla vs Toddler Edition.

Not related, but this reminds me a bit about the woman in Sweden who entered a wolf enclosure because she thought she a "spiritual connection" with them or something. Ended up being the first confirmed person to be eaten by wolves in over 100 years.

Sometimes we actually choose to do nothing.

Edit: Best I can tell, that woman had enough time to avoid getting a Darwin award.
 
I was surprised too. I could understand some people being upset but this has been dominating the headlines for days and I find it bizarre.
 
Hm, did they wait a bit for the toddler to be hurt (?) before shooting the gorilla?

Obviously the gorilla is just an animal, and can't be held accountable, yet i would not really feel like being next to any person who would choose to let the animal live if a human life (or well-being; serious trauma pending) is on the line.
 
Like orca, great apes shouldn't be kept for display.
 
Hm, did they wait a bit for the toddler to be hurt (?) before shooting the gorilla?

Obviously the gorilla is just an animal, and can't be held accountable, yet i would not really feel like being next to any person who would choose to let the animal live if a human life (or well-being; serious trauma pending) is on the line.

Yes the gorilla started to roughly drag the boy and it weighed over 400 pounds, very strong. The boy was injured. The zoo said using a tranquilizer was a risk because it can sometimes take several minutes to work.
 
If your going to keep an animal as dangerous as an adult gorilla, the least you can do is build an enclosure that a 3-year old can't get into.
 
Yes the gorilla started to roughly drag the boy and it weighed over 400 pounds, very strong. The boy was injured. The zoo said using a tranquilizer was a risk because it can sometimes take several minutes to work.

By the by, that 'sometimes' is really a best-case scenario - the zoo pointed out that it didn't have any fast-acting tranquillisers, but didn't mention that 'several minutes' is the definition of 'fast' for those things. Not to mention that they're an awful lot more dangerous than bullets if they hit anything other than the target. If you're grazed by a bullet, there's a good chance that you can be given medical assistance and that you'll survive even a reasonably nasty hit. If you're hit by enough tranquilliser to knock out a gorilla, you're dead. I know a vet who was out darting deer, and scraped their finger on one of the needles - just that was enough to put them in hospital, very seriously ill.
 
Well, my reaction is rather that reading people ranting about other people ranting about this topic is getting boring too.
 
Animals are animals, and yes there is personal attachment and emotion but on a macro level they're not as important as people.

It's clearly a subjective matter, not an objective one as you describe it.
 
What does "important" even mean? From our perspective... well, sure, that's like asking a mother who's more important - her daughter or a random, adult person.

For Nature the importance of both individuals is near 0, with us probably being a bit below 0, because we're not part of its natural ecosystems and instead cause damage to them.

Even the argument of cognitive abilities is just viewing the world with our own lens.
 
Nature doesn't have a point of view. Claiming 'for nature the importance is' is -mostly- like claiming that if you write 2 or 3 the importance must be judged by arithmetic itself and not your use of it.
Another example would be to claim that the worth of a sprite in a computer program is to be evaluated by the computer program. But that has no sense or point of view. Still not the same, given at least a computer program is distinct subspace, whereas 'nature' is of a different order of supposed 'whole'.
 
I guess you managed to be more of a petty jerk than me there. Let's see if I can change that!

Given that nature is a system that sustains itself and always moves towards sustaining as much life as there's resources available: While it doesn't have a point of view, we have the capacity to deduce what it's point of view would be if it had one by looking at the characteristics of the system.

Unless viewed from the very macro-level (e.g. "Intelligent life must exist because it's the only life that can one day stop the inevitable celestial body from destroying everything.") nature would therefor favor life that is part of its ecosystems and makes them flourish.
 
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