Sad But Very Irresponsible..................Grrr!

[Bigmallly]

Totally agree Sara, if they need to keep animals in captivity then they should be protected from us.

[SaraJH]

I know that I am straying off topic but the week in Thailand was awesome, I got to bath and bottle feed really young orphan elephants and I was 'given' my own youth elephant for a week, she was 10 years old. We had to get up at 5 am each morning and fetch our elephants from the jungle and then each day we were taught the mahout commands and we rode them, on our own. We sat on their necks, on our own and rode around the forest. You direct them to kneel so that you can climb onto their necks and then to get off they either lie down or you slide down their trunks lol. They also lift their front legs so that you can clamber onto them lol but that's much harder than getting them to lie down!

The icing on the cake was bath time in the Mekong river. If you have never sat on an elephants neck and had them spray river water in your face the you haven't lived!

Utterly awesome experience.

[veggiechicken]

I've been to the Elephant Orphanage too and fed the babies with giant sized milk bottles
As for the innocent gorilla who lost his life because of an uncontrolled child and his careless parents - totally inexcusable and unnecessary.
RIP Harambe

[Baldy]

I hope it haunts them for the rest of their days.

A curse is a thing to be very wary of casting... go gently if you can... it will be better for you...

[Nicos]

I presume it would be insurance led?
If the child was harmed the parents would sue the zoo?

If I recall correctly , wasn't there a child who fell into a gorilla enclosure a few years back and the child was lifted gently or rescued by the gorilla?

[cptncrackoff]

I agree BM incredibly sad and totally unnecessary..

But watching the other videos where the gorilla drags him off like a toy, I'm guessing they felt they had to.

[veggiechicken]

I presume it would be insurance led?
If the child was harmed the parents would sue the zoo?

They'll probably sue the zoo anyway for the trauma or summat.

[Bigmallly]

I agree BM incredibly sad and totally unnecessary..

But watching the other videos where the gorilla drags him off like a toy, I'm guessing they felt they had to.

I got the impression it was pulling the boy to safety.

[cptncrackoff]

I got the impression it was pulling the boy to safety.

Possibly, the video I watched cuts out.. I don't know, there was a very famous similar case where the child was protected from the other gorillas wasn't there!?

I don't know how hard it would be to shoot or not..
Suppose they valued the Hunan life greater than the gorilla.

[Bal]

I got the impression it was pulling the boy to safety.

So did I. Why do we always assume that animals are going to harm us. They only attack if the feel threatened. If that gorilla was attacking that child he would have been dead within tree seconds. Looking at the video there was no aggression in his ( the gorillas) pose. We just have to kill first and ask questions later. The parents should be sued for gross neglect.

[muddled]

In the vieo I watched, the gorilla looked to be very gentle with the child.
Actually, he reminded me of a parent, picking him up out of the water, dusting him off...checking he wasn't hurt.
Perhaps things got rougher after the video stopped rolling but I agree with jungle jane, seems these zoos never have a nice speedy tranq available yet are somehow never short of bullets.

[Containergardener]

As always. With out being there we don't know. Certainly onlookers said and viewings say the gorilla was trying to protect the child. Gorillas are highly intelligent (cough BM heeee..kidding)
The human race are far more stupid and cannot think beyond their smart phone , Facebook or tw@tter accounts.

Poor gorilla. It wasnt its fault. The child/parent/society .

[Bigmallly]

Nothing will convince me that they had to kill it, a warning shot or injury shot would have sent it running a mile.

[sparrow100]

It's a huge shame - but I've never heard of an instant tranquiliser and if the keepers thought the boy was in danger they would have no choice but to shoot to kill. I can't imagine it's something any zoo employee would do lightly, keepers get incredibly attached to the animals they look after.

While I would love there to be no need for zoos, the good ones do an awful lot for supporting wildlife. The gorilla breeding programme at Chessington (where I worked for a while as the most junior of keepers [wellies, barrow and shovel!]) is one of the world leaders.

[veggiechicken]

If I recall correctly , wasn't there a child who fell into a gorilla enclosure a few years back and the child was lifted gently or rescued by the gorilla?

30 years ago!