This HAS happened before on rare occasion, but in the end it just sucks. A kid was hurt, terrified and nearly killed, and a beautiful animal HAD to be killed (it was unfortunately the right move). It's all terrible. But the Fake Outrage community of course had to have their say, completely ignorant that it was a black kid: Spoiler ...still don't see what "privilege" had to do with such a rare tragedy. We all go to the zoo.
The tragedy is keeping a wild animal in captivity and the idiots expecting it to act like something other than it is. Animals, especially large and aggressive predators, are not a joke. It should not be a shock when they fuck someone up or we have to respond as if they will.
I work in school administration. It's legally-mandated to lower the ratios in order to increase supervision when going "in public" (in fact I specifically use field trips to the zoo as one of my examples when I do training on the topic). We go lower than what the state requires, just because the potential cost of what would happen if a child went out of an adult's supervision for even one second is so severe. As someone who owns a daycare, I imagine the mother of the child understood this. I also imagine that in a million years she never imagined him stating that he wanted to go into the pen was an actual statement of intent that he WAS going into the gorilla enclosure. These are not massive leaps in logic here. Even if the mother was not watching her child -- even if she was on her phone, distracted by a phone or whatever all these animal activists are throwing out there -- it doesn't matter. Say the kid ran away from his mother, or was a dumbass teenager wanting to get something on youtube, or was a drunken asshole who thought climbing into the cage was a good idea. Age or abilities of the person doesn't matter, nor does the level of supervision they had or if they had any. It is not up to anyone but the zoo to ensure that they are Simply put: If you have undertaken the responsibility to house an animal with the size, power, intelligence and otherwise ability to wreck shit that a gorilla has, you better be damn sure that its enclosure is fucking bombproof. Not only do you need to deter and prevent members of the public who might have the intent on entering the pen from doing so, but you also must keep the gorilla inside the enclosure. If you got a gun safe anyone can break into, you might as well just your guns in your closet. As Nett said, the zoo is lucky the "only" cost was the gorilla... so far. You can bet they're gonna do a review and upgrades on all their other pens, and even that might still not be enough to keep them out of court.
I think the mother of the child should have to wear a gorilla costume and fill in for the now deceased gorilla. It should be a good time.
So 300 South African firefighters just landed in Edmonton to go help with the Fort Mac fires. Fucking boss.
Looks to me like one of their native campfire dances. Ha! Jokes on y'all. They're just there for the BBQ.
So I just got a message from the woman I've been seeing that she wants me to put it in her butt the next time we meet up. Sometimes, life is good to me. Usually it sucks, but right now it's good. Spoiler This isn't her, but it's an uncanny likeness, especially the face/hair.
He's saying she's a he. It's a joke. RotN obviously forgot about you bragging about her glorious bush.
I was talking to a vet this morning about that video. He said that's pretty typical behaviour of a male gorilla in protection mode. They'll often grab a female and drag her out of a dangerous situation just like that. Just goes to show how crazy strong gorillas are. He also said it's a good thing he didn't end up in a chimp or orangutan enclosure. They would have just ripped the kid apart. I don't really blame anybody for this. It was just an unfortunate accident. The mom was distracted for a bit, and maybe the kid is small for his age and he was able to wiggle through an opening in the barrier. Zoo enclosures are designed with two barriers to keep people and animals in their separate spaces. You can't design for every event and be able to achieve your desired results. It would cost to much, so you design for the most unlikely event (100 year storm, max height the largest gorilla can reach and triple that distance, etc). The zoo will go back and determine how the kid got in and change the barriers appropriately. I can't believe how much outrage there is on this. If anybody should be blamed it should be the kid. He's the one that climbed through the barriers and fell into the enclosure.