If you had watched the full video, you would have seen the gorilla holding hands with the child right before it was shot. Upon what are you basing your positivity? Moreover, you do realize that the gorilla, unlike the mother, didn't know what you can and can't do to a human child? You wrote that as if the gorilla was simply a deviant and should have minded it's manners.
Forewarning: I did not read every page of this thread, but I did read a few. I don't know if I have a problem with the "in-the-moment" decision to shoot the animal or not. I do have a problem with the value quite a few people here have put on "human" life over "animal" life. This opinion has nothing to do with whether or not an animal is part of an endangered species. Rather, I am sick of this desire of people to be superior over things. It creates divides which leads to hate which leads to violence. But to stick with "superiority" over animals, aren't humans mammals? Animals? Sentient beings of the Earth? Why create the human/animal divide? If one was to argue we are more superior because we have higher evolved brains, so what? What majority of good things has resulted from it for the rest of the world (aside from humans)? We create a majority of problems in the world, so why are we superior? Many people, especially through film and literature, have criticized humanity on this very basis. Hell, even Agent Smith found the human species to be a virus instead of a mammal (though that statement alone is informative until one puts connotations on it, making it negative). Just putting this out there to make people think. I can clarify or expand more in further comments.
I saw the entire video, again did you see the gorilla drag the child at top speed? If it got shot at with a tranq dart do you think it woulda just sat there calmly? And I'm not saying it's a deviant I'm saying it's an ANIMAL that doesn't care for HUMAN babies so it doesn't know the extent of their strength what they can and can't do etc
Real question is. Is it ok to spend crap load of time effort and money trying to protect a endangered animal, that will never return to its former glory. Animals go extinct all the time though out history why are animals today any different ? Or protecting animals that yield hardly any benefit to the Eco system over the more important less adorable creatures that can be revived back to their former glory with far less effort and money then what the celebrity endangered animals are getting. Your pick
But what people forget is that gorillas are territorial, that child to the gorilla for what it's concerned was now it's own child. The gorilla wouldn't of given the child up, and any form of tranq used on the animal would of put the child's life in danger. I'll just go and squish a few ants outside my house because they are fun to squish, won't hear anyone complain the way people do like this. - I really do love human logic and how hypnotically they are...
Statistics I am not going to throw stats or numbers since I am far from a tree hugger. Hell I drive with one foot on the brake in my big ole V-8 just to waste more gas sometimes...... Back on topic I am pretty sure that several animals have come off the endangered spices list. American bald eagle for one. Zoos and other environments do help preserve their lively hood and I for one personally enjoy my local zoo. We frequent it a couple times a month. Just to kill an animal is wrong, but to save a life is no competition. The ape must go to save the boy. ANIMALS SAVED BY THE U.S. ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT Alligators, Whooping Cranes, Bald Eagles, Peregrine Falcons, Wolves, Grizzly Bears, And California Condors Were All Saved By The ESA The 1960s brought the first truly widespread emergence of consciousness and regret concerning the fact that many the world’s species were plunging toward extinction at an alarming rate. Copied from a Google search. Too much to copy/paste but it was an interesting read..do your homework to all the nay sayers about zoos and conservation Follow up To add on to my post many pages back. You have a golden hour to make critical decisions in order to save a life. This was not up for debate. That child, even with the body reactions they have to stress and trauma, needed to be treated and quickly. Arm Chair the decision for the next time but those 1st responders made the right choice with the limited information they had at the time
They should not have killed the primate. That's all I know. As far as who's at fault, who knows? Some of you are bad mouthing the parents. While I do agree that the parents do hold some degree of responsibility, if you don't have kids, you probably shouldn't talk. Being vigilant 100% of the time of your kids whereabouts is impossible. I don't care what anybody says. Kids will run about and get into trouble. As far as their criminal history of the parents, that's irrelevant, in my opinion. It's just a smear campaign on the part of the media to sell you more advertisements. We had a guy with a criminal record in my platoon. In combat, he was one of the most dependable troops we had. Sure he was a drunk back home but when it came time to perform, he always did. So I'm not sure if I buy the connection between parenting and criminal history. As far as the zoo, if they made everything 100% safe and child proof, the park would have a much different feel, perhaps sanitized even. It's a judgement call they made. Do you want more immersive experience or higher safety? Bottom line is at the end of the day, accidents happen. You can never prevent them 100% of the time, but that won't stop the media from shoving it in your face every day to make it seem like it's some kind of scandal that's worth talking about. There's so many other things that are wrong in the world, why the hell are we talking about a dead primate? Why aren't we talking about corruption, bank fraud, illegal wars, extrajudicial assassinations, insider trading, outsourcing, or cancer research? This is an instance of a particular case that has zero effect on anyone outside that family and the zoo management. So why should anyone else care? Not saying it's a bad topic, Moody. Just bad that this is international news. Of all the bad things in the world, at the end of the day, this is completely and utterly inconsequential to humanity.
The gorilla was viciously dragging the boy through the water in his habitat and the chances of the boy becoming severely injured were very high. Tranquilizing the already on edge gorilla would have done no good, zoo officials say that the irritated gorilla would only become more aggravated and the tranquilizer in question would take 10 minutes to work. At this point, the angered gorilla would have very likely done something to harm the boy even further. The gorilla had to be shot if the boy was expected to get out of there alive. The parents should be fined as they were not paying attention long enough to allow a four year old boy to climb a large fence into the habitat. I pity those who value the life of a gorilla over a human, get a grip.
You know I have nothing but respect for you and your opinions Cheese and would never take offence at your posts. I also agree with about 95% of your post but this paragraph I have quoted doesn't quite sit right with me. Namely, "zero effect on anyone outside that family and the zoo management" whilst on a purely human level (which I believe is where you're focussing) you're absolutely right. However, the gorilla was so rare and is so close to extinction that on a biological standpoint the conservation of these creatures is incredibly important. The biodiversity and genetic variation that just one animal has in such a dwindling population is incredibly important for their survival. To use a more popular example - I am genuinely saddened that we do not have the Dodo anymore. They were dumb birds that didn't benefit a great deal to the world as far as we know but humans wiped them out. I would personally hate to see any other creature meet the same fate due to human actions. Whether that be due to hunting or zoo-based euthanasia. Is that ok? Opinions vary so greatly on this thread that I definitely still believe that tranquillising the gorilla to see if that worked first may have been the better course of action with lethal shooting occurring afterwards if damage was continuing to come to the boy. 790 gorillas in comparisons to 8billion humans. Harambe deserved the chance to survive before the death penalty given to him due to actions which were not his fault.
By who's standards are you basing "logic and morals?" Your own? That's an insufficient way to measure such a statement. Was the killing appropriate? No. Is it justifiable? Maybe. Was it necessary? Yes. I will continue to point out that this kid could or might have a better impact on society than an ape. Who knows, maybe this will cause the kid to become a world known advocate for the safety of Endangered Species. I agree the mother should have been keeping watch, however, we can't fully blame the mother. We have to blame the curious child and apparently not fully safe barricades in the zoo. Sure, they say it's all updated or what not(as far as I have seen on news), however if a little kid can get past it when the mother doesn't pay attention for a few minutes, then they're lacking something.
I don't want you to conflate the ecological importance of the deceased primate with the newsworthiness of this tragedy. Yes, it's tragic. Yes, this primate is in danger of extinction. No, human life isn't necessarily more valuable than this particular primate. Is it worthy of extended and thorough international media attention? Hell no! The media picked this story because it's click bait and requires little to no investigative journalism prowess. Awwwww, look at this poor gorilla that a zoo keeper shot to save a kid. Huhuhu. Now click here and buy some stuff so we can make more money. No thanks! Let's be honest, the media has become complete and utter garbage, which is my whole point on this topic. There's no more quality investigative journalism that we used to see 20 or more years ago. Back then stories could take months and years to scoop. You'd get some real juicy stuff. Now you don't see that. The best "scoop" the media has had was Snowden, and that wasn't even the result of any investigative journalism. Snowden handed that one to the media. Why do you think corruption in America is at an all time high? Because journalists aren't taking the time to scrutinize their work. The media no longer investigates. All they do is look at police reports, court records and social media. They cherry pick the best clickbait and publish it on their headlines.
Can't argue with any of that post cheese. The media is a hell hole of wasted potential these days. And don't you worry, I'll tackle that as an issue in due course
Man some of the stuff in here is just ! This savage, vicious gorilla which was exhibiting defensive behavior and dragging that kid at top speed :lol: deserved to be shot. Go ask that celebrity gorilla expert guy what they should have done and he will tel you that harambe would've killed the boy but we don't know what would have happened do we. See how I added that last little bit at the end so that if my argument is proven wrong I can avoid the resulting dissonance? Oh and cheese please. Many of us have seen house of cards we know what happens to investigative journalists
No one said it deserved to be shot, everyone's just saying they had to shoot it to protect the kid. Also if the zoo had just tranqed it and the kid got hurt there is potential for a huge lawsuit, and if the kid died then there would be a debate on why the zoo DIDNT kill the gorilla. But way to go you sure made yourself sound real smart and superior by mocking every post but not providing any substance yourself
Who cares if it killed the boy? Humans like to try play god (especially Americans) the gorilla was just being natural and got killed for it.