This story reminds me a little of the story of the people who took a baby buffalo to the park ranger in Yellowstone because they thought it was cold. It had to be euthanized because the herd wouldn't accept it back because it smelled like a car and humans. Also, there shouldn't have been a railing the child could get through to fall down into being with the gorilla. I guess it is either strong thick plexiglass or grate thick enough that neither humans or animals can penetrate to get to each other. Even then humans might lose fingers through a grate if animals can get close enough if they are having a bad day.
If you click on the word button two lines down there is a video of Harambe eating celery. He was a really magnificent creature and likely 10 to 20 times stronger than any human being.
begin quote from:
Caretaker mourns death of gorilla killed at Cincinnati Zoo
| New York Daily News | - |
The
former caretaker of the 400-pound gorilla gunned down yesterday after a
toddler toppled into the primate pen at the Cincinnati Zoo, mourned the
loss of a “sharp character.
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Former caretaker mourns death of Harambe, gorilla killed after toddler fell into his cage at Cincinnati Zoo
Witness describes Gorilla World incident video
WLWT - Cincinnati, OH
R.I.P. Harambe.
The former caretaker of the 400-pound gorilla gunned down yesterday after a toddler toppled intohispen at the Cincinnati Zoo won't condemn officials' decision to shoot the great ape, but said they are normally "gentle giants."
Jerry Stones raised Harambe since birth and said he's spent the past day in tears after finding the endangered Silverback had been killed by zoo officials a day after the gorilla's 17th birthday.
Toddler falls into gorilla cage at Cincinnati Zoo
In this Feb. 15, 2013 photo, Gladys Porter Zoo Director Jerry Stones holds a 17-day-old female baby gorilla named Gladys, who was Harambe's half-sister. Gladys was also transferred to the Cincinnati Zoo.
(Christian Rodriguez/AP)“An old man can cry, too,” Stones, 74, told the Daily News. “He was a special guy in my life. Harambe was my heart. It's like losing a member of the family.”
Stones, the director of Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville, Tex., looked after the beloved primate for a majority of Harambe's life, before he got transferred to the Cincinnati Zoo last year.
“I raised him from a baby, he was a sweet cute little guy,” Stones recalled. “He grew up to be a pretty, beautiful male. He was very intelligent. Very, very intelligent,” Stones reiterated. "His mind was going constantly. He was just such a sharp character."
Stones, who has worked in the zoo business for 50 years, bid adieu to Harambe in 2015, according to a Facebook post announcing the move.
“With a mixture of sad and happy feelings, we are preparing Harambe, one of our Silverback Western Lowland Gorillas, for the journey to his new home,” a post from the Gladys Porter Zoo’s Facebook page read.
On Saturday, however, Harambe met an early death after a 4-year-old boy fell over the perimeter to the Gorilla World exhibit and down 15 feet into his cage Saturday afternoon.
A 4-year-old boy fell into the gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo and was dragged by Harambe the gorilla before the animal was shot dead.
(KTLA 5/WLWT5)The child had snuck over the barrier after witnesses overheard him telling his mother he wanted to play in the moat of water inside the exhibit.
“The little boy himself had already been talking about wanting to...get in the water. The mother’s like ‘No, you're not, you’re not,'” witness Kim O’Connor said.
But somehow the boy managed to slip through the fence.
Two female gorillas who shared Harambe’s cage withdrew from the child when zoo officials called them, but Harambe ignored orders and hovered over the tot, nudging him with his long limbs and lifting him up at one point, according to video obtained by local Fox affiliate WLWT.
In a censored portion of the video, Harambe is reported to have dragged the boy through the exhibit’s moat.
After a tense several minutes, fast-acting zoo officials made the difficult decision to shoot the gorilla instead of using tranquilizers.
"Tranquilizers do not take effect for several minutes and the child was in imminent danger. On top of that, the impact from the dart could agitate the animal and cause the situation to get much worse," zoo officials explained in a Facebook post.
Zoo security then swiftly plucked the toddler from between Harambe's arms.
“The Zoo security team’s quick response saved the child’s life. We are all devastated that this tragic accident resulted in the death of a critically-endangered gorilla,” the Cincinnati zoo said in a statement.
“It tore me a new one,” Stones said, after receiving news of the slaying.
Silverback gorillas, who can live up to 60 years in captivity, tend to be "gentle giants," Stones said, but that there's no way of predicting whether the unexpected presence of the boy in his cage would have triggered an aggressive response.
“Still, the child was in danger. It’s a tragic set of circumstances that left a beautiful young gorilla in a situation that was foreign and ultimately ended up being dangerous for him,” Stones said. "Can you imagine what was going through those parents' minds? No matter what Harambe was doing, in their minds, they had to be petrified."
The boy was rushed to a children’s hospital with non life-threatening injuries and was alert following the incident.
As mourners brought flowers to a gorilla statue outside of the Cincinnati Zoo on the Sunday following Harambe's death, there was a strong social media reaction about how the boy managed to get into the exhibit.
"Sad thing is it looked like #Harambe was protecting the kid more than the parent was. #CincinnatiZoo ," Twitter user Britt Rosenthal quipped, along with a chorus of other outraged users.
Lt. Steve Saunders, a Cincinnati police spokesman, said there are no plans to charge the parents, in spite of the outrage. The family has not been identified.
Cincinnati Zoo officials said that since the Gorilla World exhibit opened in 1978, this was the first time anyone has managed to bypass the barriers.
"Neverthelesswe will study this incident as we work toward continuous improvement for the safety of our visitors and animals,” said Zoo Director Thane Maynard.
Harambe, a 400-pound male Silverback gorilla, was shot by Cincinnati Zoo officials after a toddler fell into his cage.
(HANDOUT/REUTERS)An online petition circulated on the internet following Harambe’s killing, calling for “justice” for the killed gorilla.
“This beautiful gorilla lost his life because the boy’s parents did not keep their eye on him,” the Change.org petition read.
So far over 400 people had signed it.
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