Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden What's Gnu at the Cincinnati Zoo - 2016

Last edited:
The footage available is all prior to the behavior exhibited by Harambe that lead to the zoo's dart team making the decision to dispatch him, as by that time all visitors had been escorted from that area of the park. Harambe remained calm with the child at first, but once the public began to panic, it panicked Harambe himself, and he carried the child up and out of the moat and was dragging him roughly around on the ground. That's when the decision was made to dispatch him.
 
Last edited:
ZooElephantsMan said:
@ Andrew_NZP, Does that video include the part where Harambe is shot? If so, here is another video, but this video has all the graphic imagery parts removed:

VIDEO: Gorilla grabs child who's gotten into habitat | Local News - WLWT Home

You can see Harambe was just protecting him from the crowd. But maybe they cut out the part where he was "throwing him" too, but idk.
Click to expand...

Thanks for posting that link and it is interesting to see the reaction of Harambe to the child. The biggest risk seems to be that the child could have accidentally been knocked around and then drowned in the moat.
 
It is really interesting how Harambe was protective of the child at first, before he started to panic. Does it mean that the gorillas fear the visitors and was trying to protect the child from the other visitors, or did it mean that he knew the child was hurt when he fell and was protecting him from getting hurt even more? And obviously he displayed dangerous actions afterwards. But I am more interested in how he acted before he began to panic.
 
I see nothing in either video that warrants a lethal option. If anything, the situation seems to have been escalated by the screaming visitors.

Disgraceful.
 
Buldeo said:
I see nothing in either video that warrants a lethal option. If anything, the situation seems to have been escalated by the screaming visitors.

Disgraceful.
Click to expand...

As I said previously, the behavior exhibited by Harambe that lead to his dispatch occurred after the videos were taken. With the manner in which he was dragging the child around, it was decided that it was too dangerous for the child to try any other recovery methods; however, I will agree that the situation was most certainly escalated by the distraught public. Unfortunately, this incident occurred during the zoo's shift change. Most of the keepers clock out at 3:30 and night watch comes in shortly after, so at the time of the accident, only one primate keeper and one member of the dart team were present at the zoo, which did not aid the situation.
 
The crowd situation certainly wasn't helped by the timing of the incident as well. If it had happened mid week there would have been smaller crowds which would be easier to control and remove. But no it happens on a weekend... a long weekend... the official kick off to summer. Crowds would have been large meaning more people to panic and scream which only would have added to Harambe's stress. Had this happened on say a Wednesday then there may have been a different outcome in a less crowded and stressful situation.

I do feel for the keepers. They would have been desperate to do anything they could to calm or distract Harambe knowing fully what would happen if they failed. Add to the grief of losing Harambe or being the one to take his life even, wondering could I have done something differently and saved them both. Tough spot to be in. Thankfully they were able to call Mara and Chewie in or the may have lost all three gorillas.
 
I can't fault the zoo for making the decision that they did. This seems surreal and horrible, but just imagine if a 3 year old kid was crippled or killed by a gorilla in a zoo. It reminds me of the Pittsburgh incident with the wild dogs. That kind of loss, even to a grossly negligent parent is the most horrific thing I can imagine and the damage it would do to the zoo if they allowed it to happen when it was preventable is significant.

This whole thing makes me so mad. 38 frigging years and nobody was dumb enough to let their kid do this and then yesterday happens. I'm not sure who makes me angrier; the apologists for the mother or the PETA vultures swooping in for the publicity.

People who apologize for these parents are absolutely what's wrong with the US today. Anything can be justified by saying "every parent makes mistakes" or "you must not have kids if something like this hasn't happened to you". Hogwash. I do have a 3 year old. We take him to that very zoo all the time. I've been going there since I was 2. I'm far from a perfect parent, but my god, how stupid do you have to be to take your eyes off your kid as he climbs into that enclosure with a dangerous wild animal?

Not everything warrants an excuse, as some would have you believe. Sometimes you just have to admit you're a massive screwup and that you need to rethink your priorities when it comes to parenting. It's akin to letting your kid drown in a backyard pool or play in traffic. Screw the clowns that want to make excuses for this family. They are scum and they are quite literally the reason our society is crumbling as generations wear on.
 
ZooElephantsMan said:
It is really interesting how Harambe was protective of the child at first, before he started to panic. Does it mean that the gorillas fear the visitors and was trying to protect the child from the other visitors, or did it mean that he knew the child was hurt when he fell and was protecting him from getting hurt even more? And obviously he displayed dangerous actions afterwards. But I am more interested in how he acted before he began to panic.
Click to expand...

Maybe it was a matter of him simply "feeding" off the panic of the crowd, rather than fearing them. I don't know about gorillas, but some animals pick up on that kind of thing and act accordingly.
 
groundskeeper24 said:
Screw the clowns that want to make excuses for this family. They are scum and they are quite literally the reason our society is crumbling as generations wear on.
Click to expand...

I think you need to moderate your tone. You are insulting a whole load of people on this site in a way that's completely unnecessary. There's always two sides to a story and we likely haven't heard either fully yet. Also politicising this debate achieves nothing.

For the record I'm not a parent but the fact that it's been 38 years without this happening indicates that this was a freak accident. It's not like there won't have been parents previously who temporarily lost sight of their children. That happens everyday. The traffic example is a poor one, it's not as if there were no barriers to the moat so a parent would expect to have to be hyper-vigilant. It's not unreasonable to expect zoos to design enclosures such that small children can't get into dangerous areas. Again, this was the first time in 38 years and I'm not in any way intending to suggest that the zoo has responsibility here.
 
The variety of human arrogance/ignorance at zoos has often been discussed on this site, and I've witnessed it many times! Worryingly, it does seem to be on the increase.

Personally, I can't blame the zoo-they were caught between a rock and a hard place. Those with long memories of course remember Jersey Zoo, but this reminded me of the chimpanzee incident at Port Lympne many years ago. Maybe it's irrelevant to this particular situation, but I'd be interested to know Damian Aspinall's opinion (and I'm sure he's got many!) on what happened.
 
Someone started a petition to hold visitors accountable for their actions while visiting zoos. - "Harambe's Law, so there are legal consequences when an endgered animal is harmed or killed due to the negligence of visitors. If this law is enacted, it will not only protect the animals, but will hold individuals accountable for actions resulting in harm or death of an animal." https://www.change.org/.../denise-driehaus-support... I usually don't believe in change.org petitions but I still signed it in hopes it might do some good.
 
TZFan said:
I do feel for the keepers. They would have been desperate to do anything they could to calm or distract Harambe knowing fully what would happen if they failed. Add to the grief of losing Harambe or being the one to take his life even, wondering could I have done something differently and saved them both. Tough spot to be in. Thankfully they were able to call Mara and Chewie in or the may have lost all three gorillas.
Click to expand...

My thoughts similarly. They faced a really impossible situation here. Harambe appeared torn between protective instinct, at first and then escalating aggressive behaviour- no doubt stimulated by the excitement and noise he could feel from the crowd before they were removed and the whole level of tension around the exhibit. Unfortunately male Gorillas are so volatile you can never tell what's coming next- he could have lost interest and moved away, or he could have got further stressed by the child's presence and seriously injured or even killed him if, for example, he had thrown him against the wall.

The females kept away- in unfamilar situations like this they tend to let the silverback take the lead.
 
Panthera1981 said:
Personally, I can't blame the zoo-they were caught between a rock and a hard place. Those with long memories of course remember Jersey Zoo, but this reminded me of the chimpanzee incident at Port Lympne many years ago..
Click to expand...

Its almost an exact rerun of the Jersey incident, but with sadder consequences for the Gorilla. In the Jersey incident, potentially the most dangerous part came at the end when Jambo et al had been enticed indoors and the young blackback male Hobbit was accidentally allowed outside in a highly excited state while the ambulance men were climbing down to rescue the boy. That keeper who stood in a dominant stance holding a big stick to keep him away, as he raced back and forth and getting nearer to the rescuers on each pass, was very brave indeed, but I'm sure he knew what he was doing. But that action would not necessarily have been possible at Cincinnati- for various reasons.

The Chimp incident at Port Lympne was very different, they were private visitors for a start.The boy in this Cincinnati incident was probably very fortunate it was not male Chimpanzees he encountered....
 
Last edited:
With regards to the Jersey incident, the silverback (Jambo) was doing his job, inspecting an intruder to establish whether or not it was threat to his troop. His favourite female, Nandi, also approached the motionless child but was shouldered out the way by Jambo. As already mentioned on this thread, when the child came to and started crying, this seemed to stress Jambo and he decided the best course of action was to retreat to the night dens, followed swiftly by his family. It's unclear whether or not Harambe would have chosen the same course of action, especially since he was agitated by the screaming crowd. Apparently the incident occured after a shift change, leaving only one staff member on the primates section. Maybe if there had been a full staff, there would have been one with a greater rapport with Harambe to call him inside, like they were able to with the females. This is probably unlikely however as the stronger instinct of the silverback would have been to protect his family.

There's only so much the zoo can do to protect people. A busy street or a railway line is of greater danger statisitcally to an unsupervised child, but we don't baracade these up. Parents need to supervise children in their care to a point, like they've managed to do for the 38 years that preceded this incident.
 
Kudu21 said:
As I said previously, the behavior exhibited by Harambe that lead to his dispatch occurred after the videos were taken...
Click to expand...

This line of thought is veering dangerously close to victim blaming. I guess Harambe should have "known better" unlike that woman, her child, and her lack of a second pair of eyes. Sounds like she could have done her part to help prevent this tragic incident.

While I don't fault the zoo for reacting as they did (even if the shooter was quick to get his gun off), the calculus is pretty clear: avoiding getting sued is way more important than the life of an endangered species. We already view each other through a veil of incomprehension, as W.G. Sebald writes, and Harambe was punished for something he might have done (and had plenty of time to do so).
 
Buldeo said:
This line of thought is veering dangerously close to victim blaming. I guess Harambe should have "known better" unlike that woman, her child, and her lack of a second pair of eyes. Sounds like she could have done her part to help prevent this tragic incident.

While I don't fault the zoo for reacting as they did (even if the shooter was quick to get his gun off), the calculus is pretty clear: avoiding getting sued is way more important than the life of an endangered species. We already view each other through a veil of incomprehension, as W.G. Sebald writes, and Harambe was punished for something he might have done (and had plenty of time to do so).
Click to expand...

It was nothing close to victim blaming, and as someone who is affiliated with the zoo and had to experience this incident first hand, I am rather offended that you would suggest this. This was a tragic event, and no, none of this was Harambe's fault. He was simply acting as a gorilla would; however, in doing so, he could have very easily accidentally injured or killed the boy by complete accident, and given the situation, it made it too dangerous for the boy for any other recovery method to be tried. I was not blaming Harambe, I was defending the zoo's decision to do what they had to do. To accuse me or the zoo of blaming Harambe for this situation is incredibly insensitive to the entire zoo staff. Everyone has been left incredibly distraught, having to deal with a loss of a member of our family. I absolutely do not argue that the mother of the child played a huge part in this horrible incident playing out; however, as an affiliate of the zoo, I, technically am not allowed to discuss my opinion on the matter as their is an on going investigation, thus why I did not discuss this fact further.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top