The vitriol aimed (not just here) at this child's mother is fascinating.
Who of us didn't get away from our mom at some point when we were small kids? Never wandered off in the mall? At the Stampede? The zoo? I know I did.
This was a one-in-a-billion accident that people are calling gross irresponsibility and terrible neglect. I mean come on, it's a gorilla cage. Who thinks a little kid could get into something a silverback can't get out of?
"Keep a keen eye on Jimmy, he might get into the gorilla cage, it's not very secure!"
As for the gorilla protecting the kid, my level of gorilla behaviour expertise is at the same level as the average person's—zero—so I realize saying this is pointless, but it didn't look to me like the gorilla was in "protection mode". It looked pretty agitated, for what I would say is good reason.
It stinks that the gorilla had to die of course, but the story would be much worse if the gorilla hurt or killed the kid, and then they shot him, because that's what they would have done.
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