Yesterday, a video went viral of a four-year-old child who fell into a gorilla enclosure in the Cincinnati Zoo on Saturday. The gorilla, 17-year-old Harambe, dragged the child around in the moat for ten minutes. Harambe was sadly shot and killed by zoo officials, and the child walked away with a concussion and some bruises and scratches.
At a press conference yesterday, the zoo defended its decision to shoot the gorilla. “Waiting and shooting it with a hypodermic was not a good idea. That would have definitely created alarm in the male gorilla. When you dart an animal, anaesthetic doesn’t work in one second, it works over a period of two to ten minutes. The risk was due to the power of that animal,” explained Cincinnati Zoo director Thane Maynard.
The internet has since been split into two sides: one side is mom-shaming the mother of the child, blaming her for being careless and not keeping an eye on her son and ultimately blaming her for the death of Harambe. Then there are those who blame the zoo for the area not being fenced off properly and leaving room for the child to climb through:
Celebs took to twitter to react to the news:
Damn homie.. You was just chillin at your crib. R.I.P pic.twitter.com/shTdDzldwh
— ICE T (@FINALLEVEL) May 30, 2016
My opinion: If you’ve EVER gotta keep an eye on your children. It’s at a Fn ZOO with wild animals.. Ya think?!
— ICE T (@FINALLEVEL) May 30, 2016
Oh the poor gorilla,he did nothing wrong,if you watch the video,so sad..as a mother I would’ve jumped in too.
— Lisa Vanderpump (@LisaVanderpump) May 30, 2016
Taking their eye off the ball, but no child should ever be able to crawl into a gorilla compound. https://t.co/intjxDvUqk
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) May 29, 2016
No, it’s the zoo’s fault.
No 4-yr-old kid should ever be able to crawl into a gorilla compound. https://t.co/pSGysjnB1j— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) May 30, 2016
How was the gorilla enclosure not child proof? You’re dealing with an endangered species & yet you’ve made it possible for kids to fall in?
— Zelda Williams (@zeldawilliams) May 29, 2016
For the record, the parents are absolutely partially at fault, but it shouldn’t have been possible, unsupervised or otherwise.
— Zelda Williams (@zeldawilliams) May 29, 2016