An endangered gorilla has been shot dead after a 4-yo fell into its zoo enclosure

[AdrenalineFudge]

Why the fuck has this happened... again - to another endangered species?

A little boy fell into an enclosure and the zoo staff decided the best course of action was to shoot the gorilla dead.

I'm not even sure who I'm most angry at. This should not have happened in the first place.

'A parent should have had hold of a hand at least at all times '

Haha!

What a dumb thread.

she had one child with her though

I had to take my DD to Uni with me once to meet a coursework deadline. As I was printing it off. I took her out the Pram for literally a nanosecond whilst I cleared a snack sausage roll out of her buggy. In those few seconds she'd buggered off to the very pretty Christmas tree in the other corner. My heart was in my mouth for those two minutes but all was well.
Point being that , kids can get very far in those split seconds, and yes even with just one child to look after this stuff still happens.

Yet in the other hand, this is exactly why I avoid zoos like the plague with DS. He has no concept of danger whatsoever and repeated warnings would go right over his head.

For those of you saying you have no sympathy for the mother...

Do you even have children? If so, if they've never run off... Well done.

They've never run off in the park? Supermarket? Street? Road? Amongst the clothes rails in a clothes shop? Wriggled out of their buggy? Not even at least one of these?

Have your children always done exactly as you tell them, the first time that you tell them?

Do you have more than one child? Or at least have the experience of looking after more than one child? There are times when children excitedly run off. It's good that they do actually, they're asserting their independence. Sometimes it's safe sometimes it's not. If I were to go to a zoo, I would expect that appropriate safety barriers were in place, so that no human, especially and excited 4 year old human wanting to get a better look, could get past.

The mother had several other children with her. All it would've taken was for one of the others to distract the mother/ask a question and 5 seconds later the boy is out of sight.

The zoo is absolutely at fault. The safety barriers should be human proof. The child should not have been able to get past the barriers. A gorilla was shot dead, which is awful, but given the choice with what the gorilla was doing to that poor child, the zoo did the right thing and shot dead the animal.

It should not have happened, but it did. They made the right decision when they needed to. If that was my child I'd have no hesitation in shooting the animal myself, and I'd be very surprised if any other parent said differently.

If any animal hurt my children, I would do all I could to protect my child, endangered animal or not.

Point being. I'd take my now very sensible 10yo, I'd be very reluctant to take my DS without an extra pair of hands.

EveryoneElsie there was a Paul O'Grady doc on recently, where an animal sanctuary had just that, cages humans could sit and eat their lunch in whilst the animals had the run of the place!

Why the need to blame someone?
Clearly not the Gorilla's fault- it's a gorilla and was just doing what wild animals will do.
Not the fault of the person who shot it- tranquilliser darts simply don't work like in the movies and aren't a realistic alternative. You'd just have an angry, disorientated Gorilla. They clearly weren't trigger-happy and rushing to shoot it straight away as it took them 10 minutes before they decided the situation was life threatening.
Parents' fault? Well I suppose it wouldn't have happened if they'd had hold of him but even as a non-parent I'm perfectly aware that no one has hold of their child 100% of the time. Plus you expect zoos to be places where young children go on school trips etc with less than 1-2-1 supervision and so I think most people, rightly or wrongly, expect them to be relatively safe spaces for young children. My local zoo certainly isn't somewhere where parents hold onto their children all the time. There are little play areas etc dotted about and you often see primary school groups there.
The zoo? Clearly the enclosure should have been more secure. A small child should not have been able to fall into the enclosure so easily. From the accounts I've read he wasn't scaling a fence or anything. That being said in all the years the zoo has been open nothing like this has happened before, they clearly thought the enclosure was secure enough, sadly it wasn't. I hope the put it right but it doesn't sound like they are generally negligent in caring for their animals and securing their enclosures.
Sometimes bad things happen, it's sad but not anyone's fault as such. Doesn't mean lessons can't be learned but blame helps nobody.

It was a ZOO, not a safari.

Last time i was there, there were a lot of children.

A zoo is a place that advertises itself as family friendly.

Tbh it goes without saying that the children should not be able to get into the gorillas. No matter what frankly. Esp a 4 yo. Wtaf?!

Unless the parents had actually fucked off for lunch or something, it's not their fault.

Very well put FuzzyWizard.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Tbh I feel much more sickened by the hatred levelled at her and the zoo keepers than at any other part of the story.

And at the enclosure designers! FFS, when I was a kid the animals were in concrete boxes with bars & glass for the humans to gawp through. If you want to go back to that, just in case, I am emphatically not on your side.

Although I remember a kid climbing into the polar bears' enclosure, which was below ground level (concrete) with a concrete wall and bars. He got in anyway. Was killed.

This was a freak event. Nobody's to blame. Glad the child was unharmed. Sorry for the gorilla and his two girlfriends. For those who didn't watch the full video, the animal was not treating the child kindly - more like a new toy. It could have turned into a double death.

I don't think anybody is to blame either.

I do think a lot of people are really hugely uneducated when it comes to animals though. Equating chimp behaviour with that of gorillas for one - chimps are renowned for their aggression whereas gorillas are a much more peaceful animal. If you are going to fall into the pen of a great ape then the gorilla enclosure isn't the worst choice you could make.

Yes, the gorilla looks rough. He is hugely powerful and a bit confused. I would not like to be dragged around by one but that does not mean he was being aggressive - he's the alpha of a group and it's not in his interest to be aggressive unless he is threatened by another alpha. His stance was protective, he was obviously concerned and thought the best thing to do was to stay near this small upset thing until something happened.

He just looks confused tbh.

The full vid is on YT and most comments are less than sympathetic to the mother although the YT comments section isn't famed for it's supportiveness

Sorry to say, but there are so many feckless parents with feral children out there, hanging around at zoos and other attractions, spoiling it for everyone. And how pissy they get if someone as much as asks to be more careful.

Poor gorilla.

None of us are perfect parents and have made mistakes, but i assume its not rocket science to hold a small child's hand/ keep them on a leash in places like this. I doubt that it was a split second for a child to scale a fence.

Parents who say 'my child is an escape artist' are lazy. They think that parents who don't let their dc run off are just 'lucky' not to have had a child who was born as an escape artist. News flash: it is possible to teach a child that they should never run off. Yes, children are teachable, surprising as that may sound to some parents. And it is YOUR job as parents to teach your own dc.

If your child is genuinely not teachable (SN) then, you watch them like a hawk and don't put yourself in charge of too many children at a time so that you can't physically watch them all.

I have a friend whose dd is always getting lost in public places. She says 'my dd is a runner'. Right. She reckons she can't teach her dd not to run off because she was born a 'runner'. Teaching children some basic discipline is challenging, but not impossible.

If he disappeared into a bush and went under a fence it could have happened in seconds because the (larger) parent wouldn't have been able to follow him easily. I call bullshit on any parent who says they have 100% control of the movements of their children on every second of every outing.

Seems like a tragic accident to me.

People getting into enclosures is surprisingly common. I assumed everyone knew that zoos are dangerous places where children should be closely supervised. I agree though that there should be caged walkways etc as humans just cannot be trusted to respect animals.

I would assume that as public, family-friendly attractions that zoos would be safe not dangerous places

I also think 'child proofing' houses instead of doing some basic teaching is to blame. Parents now expect the zoo to be child-proofed. Because the dc have never been taught any basic discipline so simple instructions like 'don't climb the enclosure' are completely meaningless to the poor dc. Not their fault - they have never been taught the meaning of such words.

I went out and about in London with such parents. The dc would climb anything and everything. The four year old started scaling the Buckingham Palace fence. A guard had to come and have a word. Parent says 'oh, she's a climber'. Right.

You have seen here on MN people whose dc have zero discipline and expect their relatives to childproof their houses - remember the thread where the mum let her dd go through her sister's bedroom, wardrobe, handbag, etc, and expected the sister to keep them locked if she didn't want kids going in them? That is the ridiculous attitude that we are seeing here, people expecting the zoo to childproof the whole zoo so that the dc don't go where they're not supposed to.

These are kids who have never been taught any boundaries. Instead, the world is supposed to be made accident-proof for them.

Oh London... Yeah, its some children (and parents) who need to be kept in a zoo

The need to blame is astonishing. The parents, the zoo, the keepers, whoever. Why can't we accept that terrible freak accidents sometimes happen? That nothing can be made entirely risk free or idiot proof? That people can make a catastrophic error or judgement without this meaning they are incompetent or catastrophically stupid themselves?

Someone on MN once linked to a heartbreaking article about parents who has accidentally left their babies in cars and their babies had died. Indisputably, the parents made a terrible, awful mistake and paid the highest imaginable price. I felt nothing but sympathy for these parents. I cannot understand anyone who sits in judgement saying that people in these incomprehensibly devastating situations have brought it all upon themselves and deserve no sympathy because they are idiots or neglectful or uncaring. Sometimes, a series of mistakes just happen, someone has a moment of stupidity which happens to have unthinkable consequences. Why do we have to blame and castigate all the time? How much does a little empathy cost us? Why can't we feel sorry for everyone in this kind of situation?

My empathy here is with the poor silverback. He paid the ultimate price

I call bullshit on any parent who says they have 100% control of the movements of their children on every second of every outing.

What a ridiculous comment. Of course you can't watch the dc 100% of the time. That's why teaching children basic discipline is important. Children should be able (unless they have sn) to understand simple instructions even if you don't have your eye on them 100% of the time.

There is no model of parenting that relies on having your eye glued to the dc every second. Luckily, children are teachable so this is not necessary. News flash: children can be taught to do as you say. Yes, they can.

I have an open fireplace in my house. Do I watch my dd like a hawk every second when the fire is burning? No. Has she ever waited for the moment my back is turned to run and hurl herself into the fire? No. It would physically be possible for her to climb into the fire, sure, but I have taught her to keep right away.

People must think children are incapable of learning simple lessons about managing obvious risks and staying safe, so they don't bother to teach them. Instead they expect the world to be idiot-proofed. We are failing our dc. Unless there are SN a four year old is capable of learning that he should not climb into zoo enclosures, even if his parent's eye is not on him every second.

Why can't you feel sorry for the silverback and the parents? That's what I mean. I feel sad for everyone in this situation. I don't see the need to blame anyone. Learn from it, yes, and address any gaps in security for the zoo. The parents have likely learnt a hideous lesson as well. I don't think they deserve to be crucified by social media on top of what they've been through.

Probably the worst parenting mistake I've made is forgetting to strap my 4yo into his car seat and setting off down the motorway. The five minutes between him telling me what had happened and the service station I could pull off at was horrendous. If, heaven forbid, we'd crashed and he'd been unsecured then I'd never have forgiven myself of course but would I deserve to have been dragged through the wringer by everyone else for my mistake? I triple check on every journey now, I'll never forget. I was an idiot and I let my attention lapse at a crucial moment. I was lucky there were no consequences.

My neighbour set off in her car yesterday with her three year old on her lap in the driver's seat pretending to steer. I think she was very foolish. I'd still feel a lot of sympathy for her if he was injured as a consequence. And that's a conscious, knowing choice that she has made to take a pointless risk. It's not a lapse in concentration, which we can all be guilty of.

I have absolutely zero sympathy for the parents. This should not have happened at all.

I bloody do, and I normally have my judgy pants hoiked so far up my ass I can't fart.

Whatever happened, whether hole in a fence/naughty child/ unsuitable enclosure, that woman watched a 200Kg animal nearly drown her child.

And she kept talking to him. She let him know she was there.

And now the world is judging her parenting.

Hands up anyone who has not, for a split second, taken their eye of their child? Anyone who has never gone through the experience of 'where is (s)he?'.

The child said he wanted to go in the water moments before the incident, eyewitness Kim O'Connor said. His mother, who was also watching several other children, is said to have replied: 'No, you're not, no, you're not

Well, I wasn't there, but this was in some news reports. Sounds like a case of a boy who did not listen to his mother saying 'no' when he wanted to go and play. This has nothing to do with keeping your eye on your dc 100% of the time. Children can be taught to understand what 'no' means even if your eye is not on them every split second. Especially when you are out and about. You are watching everything else going on around, you CANNOT keep your eye on the dc 100% so you must teach them to do as you say.

My children have both made it into their 20s.
I wonder if I was ever as smug and confident that no harm would ever come to them if I always ticked every good parenting box. Because if I was, I had a steep learning curve.
As a folklorist, here's always something very primitive about people's need to blame and point when accidents happen and misfortune hits other families. As if by assuring ourselves that we'd NEVER do that will ensure that evil, bad luck and mischance will pass us and our families by.
As is happening here, from many posters.
Yes, the enclosure should have been secure, and no doubt they will review security and boundaries in the light of this event.

Watching that video you can see that the screaming from the bystanders/parents is what causes the gorilla to move again. Clearly he thinks he is protecting the child. The first thing the zoo workers should have done is move everyone away, any animal would get agitated and confused by all that noise. If he was going to harm the child he would have done it within seconds. It's a shame that he got to the point of being too het up to get tranquillised but it was too much of a risk by then. The zoo need to do a risk assessment of the fencing for sure but the parents do need to take responsibility as well. Zoos may well be a family day out but at the end of the day the animals you go to see are still animals and need to be treated with the respect ( and healthy amount of fear) they deserve.

For the keepers to think of an alternative course of action is unreasonable. The child was in danger from a huge animal. It's very unfair to try and suggest an alternative course of action because non of us were there dealing with it, very few of us will have experience in dealing with these animals and also managing the safety of visitors in zoos and how likely this accident was to occur in the first place.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing and even better coming from folk who weren't there and again with little or no experience in dealing with animals in these environments. Sometimes we just have to accept the actions of others due to them having much greater experience and knowledge than us, things are rarely as easy and as straight forward than us laymen think they are.