To think it's unfair to blame the mother of child hurt by gorilla?

[pinkladyapple]

Yes if she was holding his hand maybe he wouldn't have ended up in the enclosure. But he could have gone over/through the fence in a split second. And the zoo should have fencing which makes this impossible, surely?

The parents aren't being prosecuted for negligence and yet the Internet seem angry at the mother.

But then the people who think that also seem to think a tranquilliser works instantly, and the gorilla wouldn't react to the pain or impact of the dart.

It's sad and terrible though. For everyone.

It such a shame that human negligence has caused this animal to be killed. But the child does come first.
I just read that a woman was killed by a crocodile whilst swimming in crocodile infested waters. There were warning signs up everywhere but she still went for a swim and at night???
What the MP said was harsh but true
'You can't legislate against human stupidity,'
'This is a tragedy but it was avoidable. There are warning signs everywhere up there.'

I don't know. I think if my child fell into a zoo enclosure and was ragged around by a gorilla I might be pretty angry at how this could have happened and she may have been advised to not say anything that accepts any responsibility. It is the U.S. - land of litigation after all.

The zoo failed the child and Harambe the gorilla. The enclosure should have been designed to absolutely prevent this. What happened to the risk assessment? This situation was inevitable if it was so quick and easy for a four year old to get in!

Society is also to blame as we promote the image to children that these dangerous animals are like big, cuddly bears just so that the zoos can make a profit

I would shoot anything aside from another child to save a child. Jesus wept that some of you don't feel the same....about other peoples kids anyway

The child told his mother he was going to go swim in the gorilla enclosure. Then he did.

He decided he was going to go in, told his mother he was going to go in, then slowly made his way through multiple obstacles to get in. It's absolutely the parents fault. This isn't a story about a freak accident where a kid just fell in when his parents looked away for one second. If they were paying him the slightest bit of attention they'd have had multiple opportunities to stop him.

You're in the supermarket, and your kid keeps telling you they're going to go run in front of a car in the parking lot. You ignore them. They run through the supermarket, out the doors and into the parking lot. You don't notice. They almost get hit by a car...is it the supermarket's fault for having an area where kids could potentially be hit by cars? No, because we all acknowledge it's a parents job to look out for their children.

Having lost DD, then aged about 18 months, in the zoo once I feel as if I can't really judge the parents here. She was gone for a heart-stopping 2 minutes before DH found her by the vending machine, pointing at the junk food inside and grunting hopefully. Not near any animal enclosures, but more through luck than design.

I saw angry social media rants about how "the mother" was to blame before there had even been any reports on who the child was with when it happened. He could have been with his dad, grandparents, a childminder... I did find the rush to blame "the mother" as default rather disturbing.

Several people on this thread have said their child did the same thing.
I believe zoo is more to blame than the parents.

There have been two previous HIGHLY publicized incidences of young children falling into gorilla enclosures. Both at long standing zoo's that had never had a previous incident.

Both incidences should have been a prompt for any responsible zoo to evaluate their enclosures. Cincinnati obviously did not, or did not do a good enough job. They are ultimately responsible.

If the mother had been dangling her son over the edge, that would be negligence. Turning your back on a 4 year old for a few seconds and losing site of them is an expected occurrence for the vast, vast, vast majority of parents.

4 year olds saying they want to do dangerous things, also normal. My son says he wants to fly the planes at the airport, do I actually think he can get out to the run way and into the cockpit to do it? No.

One consequence if the parents do sue is that zoos will look very carefully at their enclosures. Which wouldn't be a bad thing.
Zoos are bloody marketed at kids after all, it's not like taking them to some adult only activity that you expect to be dangerous.

I'm not sure if I blame the parents or not but the mother has made herself look like a twat in her public statement, thanking God etc and no mention of the gorilla.

if the parents do sue is that zoos will look very carefully at their enclosures. Which wouldn't be a bad thing.

You'd like to think so, but this exact thing has happened twice before. Not to mention the incident where the boy was killed by wild dogs when he fell into the enclosure, yet only the newest zoo's seem to realize that you can't have open enclosures for dangerous wild animals unless the walls are plexi glass and 20 feet high.

It's funny, if this were Disney World or another child aimed entertainment area, people would be calling for responsibility from the park. But a zoo...

Someone's going to be regretting their statement to the press:

"Cincinnati Zoo Director Thane Maynard confirmed the boy was not under attack, but called it a 'life threatening situation' where the gorilla was 'agitated', 'disoriented', and 'behaving erratically'.

During a press conference on Monday afternoon, Maynard supported the animal response team's decision to kill Harambe, and said: 'Looking back we would make the same decision.'

He also insisted the zoo's barriers were secure, saying: 'We all need to work to make sure our families are safe. Do you know any four-year-olds? They can climb over anything.'"

So you know 4 year olds can climb, but you don't make an enclosure that's not climbable? Seriously. Plexiglass. 4 year olds aren't spider man, they can't climb plexiglass. It's cheap and see through. Most zoo's use it these days.

He's just admitted his enclosures aren't safe.

Local news said that the boy crawled under some bars and then crawled through dense undergrowth. The mother and other adults nearby saw him crawl under the bars but couldn't reach him in time and then couldn't see him among the bushes etc before he fell in, and the mother had to be restrained.

How many parents let their kids stand at the front of a zoo exhibit so they can see? And how quick can a child duck under a bar?

It's the fault of the zoo.

I'm shocked by this story! I have a 4 year old child myself and as much as I am vigilant I would not expect that they could climb into an animal enclosure! I would be looking to see they didn't get in other peoples way or run off to see another animal. The idea of a child getting into an enclosure with a dangerous animal is the stuff of nightmares.

It is a huge shame that the gorilla was shot but I don't see what alternative there was. The zoo has explained that tranquilliser darts would have taken too long to take effect. I think the little boy has been very lucky to come out of this without any serious injuries.

Just think for a minute about an attraction such as the sea life centre. It would be extremely easy for a child to fall into the water. Very easy, therefore an automatic response will be to keep a very close watch and close physical contact on our young.

At a zoo, I presume that risk appears a lot lower. Personally I wouldn't imagine that my children would be able to get into the gorilla enclosure, therefore I wouldn't be on my guard, as much.

I would be worried about them getting lost or kidnapped before I worried about them getting into the enclosure.

Personally i do always keep my children close, I think the PARENTS are partly to blame but perhaps lured into a false sense of security with the assumption that it was safe anyway. The zoo should have made sure it couldn't happen.

They did the right thing by shooting the gorilla, sad as it is.

Did anyone else read the story about the parents who sued a zoo after the mother put her son over the railing of the wild dog enclosure then dropped him?

Her Facebook comment "accidents happen" and no apology did not do her any favours.

I cannot understand how people are saying that the mother had been "warned" he was going to do this because he'd said he wanted to play with the gorilla.

Have any of those people ever taken a small child to the zoo? The majority of them wander round saying they'd like to stroke/ride/cuddle/play with the animals. As a parent you see walls/fences around the enclosures and don't think for a minute that a child might actually be able to get in.

Kids go missing in places like that in seconds. Literally seconds. I lost a child in a major tourist attraction last year. One second she was right there, the next she wasn't and it took 10 minutes or so to locate her.

And all the condemnation for what the mother said on TV. .. if I'd been through the ordeal of losing my child, have them turn up in a gorilla enclosure, watch a gorilla drag them around and then the gorilla be shot so close to them that a sudden movement could have left them dead, I doubt I'd have been able to string a coherent sentence together.

"Her Facebook comment "accidents happen" and no apology did not do her any favours"

What does that even mean? Favours with/for who?

And her comment "accidents happen" seems to me she is forgiving the zoo for not providing proper safety measures.

The majority of them wander round saying they'd like to stroke/ride/cuddle/play with the animals. As a parent you see walls/fences around the enclosures and don't think for a minute that a child might actually be able to get in.

We went to a zoo for DD's 2nd birthday. She loves animals. There was a crested crane walking around freely and she started to toddle over to it. Lucky I was close to her because the crane began to attack her and I grabbed her and kicked the bird so it flew away. The zoo apologized profusely and said that the animal had escaped their enclosure. If you see an animal walking around freely you assume its safe, this wasn't the case. Just like you assume children can't actually get in with dangerous animals. Children are children and it's the zoo's responsibility to keep everyone safe.

Zoo is 100% to blame and has pretty much admitted liability. Anyone who says they haven't take their eye off their child for a split second is a fucking liar. To get out a baby wipe to wipe their face, to open the child's chip packet for them, to grab another child's hand? Or do you all keep your children on leads? Maybe that's the answer - 4 year olds are like lightening.

A witness, whose husbands voice is on one of the videos said that she saw the boy 'literally flop over' a fence before suddenly quickly crawling through a bush and gap in the fence for a 'few feet', before tumbling in so quickly that onlookers close by couldn't grab him. Apparently the parents were already yelling his name before he fell, so must have noticed pretty much immediately that he was gone.

It just shouldn't have been in any way possible for anyone to get into that enclosure. Have you seen the pictures? The area that little boy got through was woefully insecure.

That zoo let down their own animal badly by not ensuring that no-one could access his enclosure, they let down the little boy and his parents, and they let down that poor gorilla's keeper. I hope they get sued to fuck, and either closed or forced to seriously revisit their security.

As for the whole 'natural consequences' shit, do please, fuck off.

Riiiiiight. How cold is up there on that perfect parenting pedestal you've put yourself on?

Losing sight of a child for a few seconds, or them slipping their hand out of yours and making a bolt for it does not equal shit parenting.

We go to our local zoo often. Annual passes. Off the top of my head, I can only think of 2 enclosures that you absolutely could not get in to. The tiger and the cheetahs.

Most of them have waist height fences/walls with a drop on the other side. Most of them would be easy to climb up and over if you wanted. You'd have a bit of a fall or land in water but you'd be in.

My ds was 3 in this photo. He could easily climb that fence if he wanted. I don't think I could ever blame the zoo if my child got into an enclosure because it would have been mine or his dad's fault for not watching him properly.

If he did get in and was in danger of being killed, would I want the animal shot to save my son? Hell yes. But he shouldn't have been there in the first place in order for the zoo to be in that situation. That's not the zoo's fault.

The zoo should make sure that no visitor can gain access into the animal enclosure.

As for the Internet brigade up in arms over the death of the gorilla, how many of them are vegan, they are the only ones who can genuinely claim to have the annals best interests at heart.

How bloody ironic that those outraged at the shooting of the gorilla will be typing whilst tucking into their meat based dinner.