Gorilla, Harambe shot dead to save 4 year old

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BBC: Cincinnati zoo gorilla shot dead as boy falls into enclosure

Harambe was a 17-year-old male western lowland gorilla.

How a kid could get into this enclosure baffles me.

Not much else you can do in that situation, the kid is lucky to be alive. There was no way they could get the kid otherwise.

Very sad about the gorilla, but if somehow it was my kid in there I wouldn't think twice about doing the same to save them.

You are both right. I don't think Harambe was being aggressive to the boy, but he was so big he could easily have hurt him unintentionally. It had to be done. It just bugs me that the enclosure wasn't more secure.

I saw the videos of the incident. It seemed clear the gorilla had no animosity toward the child. Why did no one offer a huge bunch of bananas (etc.) to the gorilla to lure it away? It seemed as though there were no emergency plans in place and they just tried to make it up as they went. Damn shame.

The people that designed the inclosure didn't do their job at making it child proof.Of course a kid might want a closer look at an animal that fascinates them.
The poor gorilla paid the price for human stupidity.

I was at the zoo two weeks ago and I just saw parents letting their kids hang over the railing. I was thinking that any of these kids could just fall in and it scared me. Two weeks later a determined 4 year old crawls under a zoo fence and falls 10 feet in to a zoo enclosure. Please watch your kids when they are at the zoo. Put a leash on them. A silver back gorilla being yelled at by a large crowd of people is hard to take down.

Only the future will tell if this was the right decision. If this kid turns into a juvenile delinquent, drug dealer, and overall menace to society, we'll wish they'd shot the four-year-old instead and saved the majestic gorilla!

Well, according to an EXPERT on the subject, the gorilla's death was JUSTIFIED.Just because some ignorant animal lovers think that all gorillas are cute does not mean that this gorilla would not have ripped the boy to pieces ... and then eaten him.

Link to Source: Gorilla Would Have Killed Boy

I doubt Harambe would have eaten him, but who knows ... could be the beginning of a good zombie movie. Anyway the power differential between the gorilla and the boy was too great. They had to act quickly. Sad on both sides ... an endangered animal was killed over something that shouldn't have happened in the first place. And this boy had a terrible experience.
They really do have to put better safety measures in place.

I blame the parents - had they put their kid on a leash, he would not have ended up in the hospital, and the gorilla would still be alive.

There is no way they could tranquilized the gorilla or gotten the child without risking the child's life because that gorilla could of killed him at any time and any attempt could of agitated the animal into doing hurting the child. Think about what dog does when you take it's bone, he could of ripped the child limb from limb.

Others who were there claim the boy repeatedly told his parents that he was going to go into the Gorilla Enclosure.
They also claim his parents were busy with other kids, allowing for the boy to get away.

This is the first time they've had an incident at this Zoo in it's 140 year old history.

There is talk of a lawsuit against the Zoo from the parents and from conservation groups (the Gorilla is part of a critical endangered species).

The mother has responded to the outrage on Facebook.

Seems to me The Gorilla had better parenting skills than the Mother.

Ugh, if the parants were watching there kid the gorilla wouldn't get shot..

I have mixed feelings about this incident, but it was the kid's fault the gorilla was shot dead. The gorilla didn't need to die, but the DART {Dangerous Animal Response Team} should have considered all options possible other than using tranqulizers and shooting the gorilla.