Something tragic happened at the Cincinnati Zoo this past weekend, Friday, May 27, 2016.
Human life became worthless.
Harambe the Gorilla was shot after a four-year-old boy somehow managed to lodge himself inside the exhibit at the Cincinnati Zoo. The zookeepers were left with no other option but to kill Harambe to save the life of the small child.
Some individuals argue that the Cincinnati Zoo did not do enough to make the enclosure as safe and unreachable as possible. The zoo could have put up electric fencing, barbed wire, and sky-high glass walls. Others blame the child for knowingly, and wrongfully, entering a habitat he shouldn't have been in, however, some disregard the fact to see that he is merely a curious, four-year-old kid who most likely didn't know any better. Some blame the parents for not keeping a better eye on their child, and for being neglectful. Some even claim that zoos should not exist altogether.
None of these 'what-ifs' are the main point of the situation - the point is that this situation shouldn't have even happened in the first place.
There are endless 'what-ifs,' but that doesn't change the fact that what happened, happened, and there was nothing that could have been done differently. Professionals and experts who have worked with wildlife species have argued the same stance. According to an interview with zoologist Ellie Moore, "Tranquilizing the animal was not an option. Just like anesthesia isn’t one size fits all for humans, it’s the same for wild animals. It would have taken time to get the right drugs at the right dose in the shot, then it would have taken time to take effect (if the dose was right), time the zoo didn’t have. Complicating matters, a large animal when tranquilized doesn’t fall to the ground dopey like they do in cartoons. Instead, the fight or flight instinct kicks in, and they can become violent."
These parents are receiving death threats, by the hundreds, over the Internet from across the globe. One person claimed, “You’re f**king wrong on this gorilla thing. The gorilla was innocent. He wasn’t hurting the kid. They should have taken BOTH lives into account. It’s not fair to kill a gorilla because of the idiocy of people. The kid was in his habitat. If the kid ends up dead, that’s not the gorilla’s fault. Maybe they should feed the stupid f**king parents to the lions next. F**k people.” And while I do agree that the parents should have been paying proper attention to their child, it isn't the main issue here. Do they really deserve death threats? If anything, this is a perfect example of how we are the ones acting like vicious animals.
The following are tweets and posts found in the Justice for Harambe Facebook page, showing how certain people feel about the sanctity and standard of human life concerning Harambe:
And I save the best for last:
I seriously wonder what all these people would do if they were in this situation. What if that was their child? Or better yet, what if that was them that fell down into the enclosure? Or if they were pressured zookeepers?
The sanctity of human life has decreased tremendously over the decades, especially in recent years. When did human life become so worthless that the murders, killings, mass shootings, and terrorist attacks on innocent human beings seem not to affect anyone in the way that Harambe the Gorilla - and even Cecil the Lion - do? How people in their homes watching the news at night or listening to the radio on their commute home simply turn the other cheek and sigh, "Oh just another shooting today. Just another attack." Just another innocent life taken away from the world. It's as if the life of a human means nothing anymore. And that is truly heart wrenching.
In the same Memorial Day weekend, 69 victims in the south side of Chicago were shot. No one is talking about that. Not even the President himself is bringing up the very serious crimes and murders by gangs in the south side of Chicago. No one is doing a thing about it. Why not? While everyone was mourning a dead ape - leaving behind flowers, cards, and holding a candlelight vigil in the zoo - no one was talking about the 69 victims who were injured this past weekend, or the 141 who were killed within the first three months of 2016. That is an average of three killings every two days, resulting in a probable 564 homicides by the end of the year in Chicago alone. There will be no candlelit vigils for them.
Individuals would have, also, neglected to know that on the same Friday Harambe was killed, so were 125,000 of the unborn. Approximately that number of abortions occur each day worldwide, 3,000 occurring right here in the United States. What is truly disheartening is that no one gives a damn about those lost lives either. If anything, that human life should be a top priority because the voiceless cannot be heard. There will be no candlelit vigils for them either.
The zookeepers did not murder Harambe for sport, or for mere pleasure. There was causality and it was situational. When it came down to it, the zookeepers rightfully decided that they could not risk the chances of anything happening to the child within the approximate 10-minute time period it would take for a tranquilizer to work, thus taking human like into accountability first. Just as it should be. Although, in the video, it appears that Harambe is attempting to "protect" the child and is not intentionally harming him, animals do not have reason. This is not "The Jungle Book." In the process of a 400-pound gorilla attempting to innocently help a 30-pound Kindergartner, the injuries could have been more serious, and perhaps life-threatening. There could have been two deaths instead of one.
It is unfortunate and a shame that an endangered silverback gorilla had to be killed and that both lives could not be saved, but it was the only available option in a time of crisis when it came to protecting the life of a human - a child. In the end, human life should and will always take higher priority over animal life. The two do not compare. So, the next time you hear of an innocent shooting on the streets, a terrorist attack, or any other deathly act of violence against human beings, don't simply brush it under the rug like it's no big deal. It is a serious problem, and people should be talking about it with passion the way people are fighting for Harambe. Why has our lack of respect for human life been stepped on and scraped across the pavement into disintegrated bits of nothingness?
That is the most nerve-racking thing to result from this incident - the belief that people think the gorilla should not have been sacrificed for the sake of the life of a child. Although you may not be terribly concerned with the lives of other human beings, you are still a human being yourself. And that should mean something to everyone. Because in the end, I would choose to protect my brother over a beast every time. The slaughter and murder of millions of unborn and the mass shootings in schools, airports, shopping malls, and movie theaters should mean something to you. More than a gorilla ever could.
