Gorilla Shot Dead at Cincinnati Zoo After Child Climbs in Enclosure

[calgaryblood]

I have to admit I was pretty pissed off at the fact a Gorilla was killed and wasn't thinking straight when I made a few of my comments. I don't blame the mother even if she did lose sight of her kid for a few seconds and even if she is a bad mother, she has suffered enough and definitely doesn't deserve to be shot. The zoo takes most of the blame here.

I was at the Calgary zoo this past weekend and there were some enclosures that I felt weren't properly guarded against children doing dumb things. If a kid really wanted to go swimming with the Hippos all they had to do was climb a 3 foot wall and they were in the same area as them.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

Jesus, to top it off I read yesterday that the police are launching an investigation into the mother. I'm sure it's all just standard stuff, but the fact that there has been so much public outcry about this is depressing.

I think we're becoming a less tolerant society, and the desire to publicly judge and shame is getting stronger and stronger. The puritans with their scarlet letters had nothing on the hivemind of 2016.

[Thor]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

Had the child been killed instead of the gorilla the empathy for the parents and family involved would have been much different though.

You can't really compare the situations.

Of course you can, social media has this ugly side of it where people pile on and judge people well before the facts come out, often harshly and without any empathy.

I see this so often with animal lovers (I count myself one) who become so angry over the death of an animal that they wish horrible things on those responsible.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Thor

I see this so often with animal lovers (I count myself one) who become so angry over the death of an animal that they wish horrible things on those responsible.

In my experience, a lot of animal lovers are misanthropes.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

It sucks that an animal had to die but i have to say I'm a little shocked at how outraged some people are. A petition with like 200,000 signatures petitioning for penalties for those responsible for the death? Like WTF? Want to send the parents to jail? Because I know they aren't referring to the zoo.

It sucks that an intelligent well meaning animal died but holy crap, it is an animal. I don't have kids and I don't really like kids but I'm pretty sure I'd rather have 10,000 dead gorillas than 1 dead child.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by Thor

Of course you can, social media has this ugly side of it where people pile on and judge people well before the facts come out, often harshly and without any empathy.

You mean like the twitter outrage of the "white boy" getting the gorilla killed?

The only reason I knew the child's race (because I didn't want to watch the video) was images like this being posted:



The difference is most reasonable people dismissed the racist undertones (on both sides).

Originally Posted by Thor

I see this so often with animal lovers (I count myself one) who become so angry over the death of an animal that they wish horrible things on those responsible.

I agree with this. And a rare gorilla being killed is going to cause outrage. People are going to look for someone to blame. One of the most obvious targets would be the parents (personally I believe the zoo should bare all the blame, kids crawl, that's what they do) regardless of race. Is there a small racist minority using this to push an agenda? Sure. Of course. But not everyone who is scrutinizing the parents, asking why the mom wasn't paying attention, reading up on the criminal history of the father (first I heard of this), etc. doing so because of racist biases...

[PepsiFree]

I think, regardless of the race issue (which I didn't see come up here), there was a very interesting difference in reaction in this thread compared to the thread about the father backing over his daughter with his truck.

Why is that, exactly? Father accidentally kills his child, Mother accidentally lets her child crawl into a zoo enclosure, but this situation seemed to bring out a lot more of the worst in people.

I don't really have a point - it would just be interesting to me what caused the difference.

[polak]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

I think, regardless of the race issue (which I didn't see come up here), there was a very interesting difference in reaction in this thread compared to the thread about the father backing over his daughter with his truck.

Why is that, exactly? Father accidentally kills his child, Mother accidentally lets her child crawl into a zoo enclosure, but this situation seemed to bring out a lot more of the worst in people.

I don't really have a point - it would just be interesting to me what caused the difference.

People go full blown stupid when animals die. Personification of animals is the reason.

[Fuzz]

In one situation a child died. In another, a gorilla died. I'd expect the reaction to be different.

[Huntingwhale]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

Would you have shot the child instead and spared the gorilla?

Yes buddy, that's exactly what I was saying.

[Yamer]

Originally Posted by polak

People go full blown stupid when animals die. Personification of animals is the reason.

I don't think it has to do as much with anthropomorphism. For me, it's a sense of innocence, helplessness, and responsibility. Humans have a capacity for reason above the rest of the animal kingdom, and that comes with a measure of responsibility and accountability especially when we either remove an animal from their environment or enter into theirs. On a different level, these same feelings apply to children (innocence, helplessness, and responsiblity).

The entire concept and environment of a zoo is human, and we have to be accountable in situations like this. Nobody is blaming the gorilla because that wouldn't make sense (at least that much can be taken as common ground here). But again it's natural to reason, rationalize, and find a cause.

This tragedy is on humans and we deserve the derision. I agree that in processing that people get worked up and say some incredibly stupid things. However, I think there is a lot more to it than giving animals names and watching Disney.

[Thor]

Well in one of the more frustrating discussions I had on FB was with a "Dog Parent" who gave the caveat "I don't have kids, but" and has in the face of all the reasonable comments give to her stood by her "she's a bad parent" and "its her fault" while proudly exclaiming that she has a dog and watches it 100% of the time.

Now I mean there is this undercurrent of cute or special animals, usually dogs or majestic beasts in Africa that if they are killed people lose their collective minds in anger.

I'm saddened by those loses too of course, but it would never give me reason to suggest the things people are saying about the mother because it cost this Gorilla its life.

Its just the ugly side of the psychology of being behind a computer when people speak these days, a similar psychology is behind road rage because once you are not face to face or in a room with people but totally disconnected like from behind a computer you turn in to this jerk. Just wish I could remember wtf Psychologists call this phenomenon.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by Thor

Well in one of the more frustrating discussions I had on FB was with a "Dog Parent" who gave the caveat "I don't have kids, but" and has in the face of all the reasonable comments give to her stood by her "she's a bad parent" and "its her fault" while proudly exclaiming that she has a dog and watches it 100% of the time.

Now I mean there is this undercurrent of cute or special animals, usually dogs or majestic beasts in Africa that if they are killed people lose their collective minds in anger.

I'm saddened by those loses too of course, but it would never give me reason to suggest the things people are saying about the mother because it cost this Gorilla its life.

Its just the ugly side of the psychology of being behind a computer when people speak these days, a similar psychology is behind road rage because once you are not face to face or in a room with people but totally disconnected like from behind a computer you turn in to this jerk. Just wish I could remember wtf Psychologists call this phenomenon.

What does that have to do with race though?

Rightly or wrongly, there exists a group of people who are upset at the parents and blaming them for the death of a gorilla. You can see it in the first page of this topic:

Originally Posted by calgaryblood

where the hell are the parents? They should be charged.

Which was thanked by 10 posters.

But it's weird to go on a tirade that the parents being scrutinized for their actions (or lack of) is because of a race. Are you suggesting that calgaryblood, bc-chris, Blaster86, Erick Estrada, FLAMESRULE, Ironhorse, midniteowl, pope04, postman56, rbochan and socalwingfan are racists because they think the parents should be charged? Or at least thought so with their initial anger? How many of those posters do you think thanked the post had no idea what race the child and parents were?

People are upset that a gorilla died. They want to blame someone. The mother is an easy target. I don't particularly agree that the mother did anything wrong but it's not crazy to see the connection. Had the child died from the fall and the gorilla never died, people would probably be a lot more sympathetic to the family and media would not be publishing the names etc. But that wasn't the case. To suggest the reason most people are mad at the parents is because of race? #### off.

[corporatejay]

If beasts were so majestic they'd have developed guns to kill us.

[Thor]

Oh I think its a tiny group that focuses on the race, since I think most people did not even know their race until well after the fact. It was the ugly NY Daily news piece that really brought that in to the open and things got uglier after that.

[Max Cow Disease]

I find that the phenomenon of animal sympathy and rage over their deaths applies doubly so for great apes. We can see so much of ourselves in animals like chimpanzees and gorillas, and they're so genetically similar. If this kid had fallen into a tiger enclosure obviously the whole event would have gone down differently anyway, but with Harambe there was this added element of him dragging the kid around by his shorts, seemingly almost providing protection.

Harambe's death will be remembered and may come back to haunt us when Caesar and company take over one day.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by Thor

Oh I think its a tiny group that focuses on the race, since I think most people did not even know their race until well after the fact. It was the ugly NY Daily news piece that really brought that in to the open and things got uglier after that.

If you want to make it a race issue, you can do that with anything though.

People are upset that a mother let her child fall into a gorilla exhibit, ultimately costing the gorilla it's life. The child live. People are mad. People are villainizing the family - people have been doing so long before race was brought up. It's sad, but it's not racist. Trying to draw parallels to stories where the child died and people felt sad for the parents is such a cop-out. The child didn't die. You fell for a race-baiting article hook, line and sinker.

You don't have to agree with the people who are blaming the mother. I don't blame the mother at all, it's a zoo, it's made for children, children crawl, they run, they get away from their parents. That's life. It's on the zoo to childproof the place. But when you start posting #### articles suggesting (well, I guess straight out saying) that people who took issue with the parents and are villainizing them are doing so simply because they are racists, I don't think you're much better than the select few racists who are blaming the parents because of their race.

[Huntingwhale]

NSFW!

[corporatejay]

Originally Posted by Max Cow Disease

I find that the phenomenon of animal sympathy and rage over their deaths applies doubly so for great apes. We can see so much of ourselves in animals like chimpanzees and gorillas, and they're so genetically similar. If this kid had fallen into a tiger enclosure obviously the whole event would have gone down differently anyway, but with Harambe there was this added element of him dragging the kid around by his shorts, seemingly almost providing protection.

Harambe's death will be remembered and may come back to haunt us when Caesar and company take over one day.

Ya, but at the end of the day, it's an animal that throws its feces and can be turned into fashionable clothing.

[Thor]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

But when you start posting #### articles suggesting (well, I guess straight out saying) that people who took issue with the parents and are villainizing them are doing so simply because they are racists, I don't think you're much better than the select few racists who are blaming the parents because of their race.

wtf, never said any such thing, just that an ugly NY Daily news article DID make it about race well afterwards by going after the father who wasn't there and digged in to his criminal background. I was only responding to people asking about the race card which has now come up after that stupid article.

This is a minority of people and like I've said already numerous times, the issue is firstly about all the people who are attacking the mother, quite literally with death threats and calls for her to be charged with negligence well before race ever came in to the equation.

Now that their race is known, the scumbag racists come out of the woodwork and its shameful, not to mention even a tabloid crap paper like the NY Daily news jumped on the bandwagon.