Good morning 3.5 Readers.
Are you all refreshed after the long Memorial Day Weekend?
It goes by too fast, doesn’t it?
Anyway, have you been following the news story about the Cincinnati Zoo?
If you haven’t heard about it, a four year old boy somehow managed to fall fifteen feet into the zoo’s “Gorilla World” exhibit.
Harambe, a seventeen year old gorilla, found the kid and at one point, grabbed him and rather violently dragged him through the water.
Zoo keepers had to act fast and decided to shoot the gorilla dead. They have explained that it was the only option. They say a tranquilizer dart would not have acted fast enough and may have even angered the gorilla and caused him to become even more violent before it kicked in.
Faced with taking a chance that they could have somehow saved the boy without harming the gorilla or shooting the gorilla, they chose to shoot him.
A lot of people are complaining that the zoo didn’t do the right thing. There’s an online petition, a hashtag #gorillalivesmatter and the usual armchair quarterbacking.
Personally, I think the zoo had to do what it had to do. I don’t think anyone wanted to kill the gorilla.
And you can’t really blame Harambe because he’s a frigging gorilla. Gorillas attack stuff. That’s what they do.
Some complainers point to a part of the video where it looked like he stands the boy up and looks like he wants to protect him.
I mean, maybe but maybe he was also thinking about the best way to crack the kid’s head open like a coconut.
Let’s be honest. Had the zoo not shot the gorilla and the gorilla had killed the kid, everyone, literally everyone, even the same people protesting the gorilla’s death, would be demanding to know why the zoo put a gorilla’s life over a boy’s.
Animal life over human life, you got to save the human.
I don’t want to immediately rush to judgment and start ragging on the family because I don’t know the full situation.
I suppose if there’s one lesson, it could be that zoos might review their exhibits and see if there are any holes that could be shored up, any little spaces where a little kid could conceivably squeeze through.
But at the same time, yeah, if you’re an adult, you’ve got to be keeping an eye on your kids.
I have no idea if the adults involved here weren’t paying attention and their kid wandered away, or maybe they were and the kid just got away from them, but I don’t know…people just need to be more careful, but at the same time zoos should review their exhibit security in light of the fact that we live in a world where literally on ne takes any responsibility for anything anymore.
RIP Harambe.
And kid, you’re 4 years old so I can’t blame you either. Hope you’re recovering well from the whole ordeal.
What say you, 3.5 readers?