On Saturday, May 28, 2016, a tragedy struck. A three-year-old boy fell into the western lowland silverback gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo. But that was not the tragedy. The tragedy was that Harambe, a 17-year-old male gorilla, was killed because of this "accident." Because this is a controversial subject, I am going to start with somewhat of a disclaimer: A human life with always trump the life of an animal. I understand that, and I understand the zoo did what they felt was necessary under those circumstances.
The reason this event, and so many others like it, is such a tragedy is because humans are compelled to take animals out of their natural world, place them in captivity, and when they do something that any wild animal would do, they punish them. Western lowland gorillas are considered critically endangered. There are not many of these animals left. So the fact that one that was still alive was shot for not having done anything wrong breaks my heart.
I’ve read many different viewpoints on the situation, and many people defend the mother in this case. I am not one of those people. Besides having animals in captivity, which just invites these accidents to happen, I believe that the mother is completely at fault. For this three-year-old child to be unattended at a public zoo for even 30 seconds is unacceptable. If you are going to have a child and take them somewhere that could be potentially dangerous — and yes, a zoo is dangerous — then you better be responsible enough to handle your child. I think that dues need to be paid and responsibility needs to be accepted. I think that this family should be sued for damages that their negligence caused the zoo. Because at the end of the day, if this mother had been watching her child, then Harambe would still be alive.
Like I said in the beginning of the article, the zoo did what they had to do. And at the end of the day they have to live with that. Do I think that more options should have been explored? Absolutely. They said tranquilizers were too dangerous to use because they take too long to work, or Harambe could have become violent. But I think that they should have used a tranquilizer and had guns on standby in case things went wrong because either way, they would have killed him, but they could have at least given the tranquilizer a chance. If Harambe wanted to kill the boy, he would have the second he fell into his territory — and he didn’t.
This is just one of the many tragedies that have taken place where human world and animal world collide and don’t end very well. People love foreign things, people love entertainment and people love excitement. Wild animals provide all of those things for them. But as soon as the excitement isn’t the good kind of excitement, people are done with them. They refuse to take responsibility for bringing a wild animal into an environment that is completely un-natural to them and then they bring other people into that same environment. This is just a deadly combination and when the animals act out, humans take the easy way out and they kill them. They get rid of the problem and don’t think twice about what they did. It wasn’t the animal’s fault. You can’t blame them for doing what is natural to them. It is the people’s fault for putting them in that situation, but nobody will ever accept the blame or admit their wrongdoing. At the end of the day, I don’t think Harambe could have come out on top in this situation. If Harambe had been violent and killed the boy, I guarantee you he still would have been killed because that’s what people do. The sad truth is that ignorant people take innocent creatures, force them to do what is completely un-natural to them and turn them into the villain. Rest in peace, Harambe — you will never be the villain to me.
