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Did Harambe, the Cincinnati Gorilla, Deserve to Die?

A 17-year-old gorilla named Harambe was shot dead on Saturday to protect a child who fell into his enclosure.

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Harambe, the 17-year-old gorilla was shot on Saturday and the world is mourning. The decision to shoot the endangered animal was made after an unidentified 4-year-old boy fell into Harambe’s moat in the Cincinnati Zoo.

Authorities said the boy fell 15 feet and was dragged through the foot of water for about ten minutes. The boy once rescued, with no visible physical bruises, was later taken to the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Centre.

Witnesses told CNN, that they overheard the boy saying he wanted to go into the water.

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Justice for Harambe: Social Media Reactions

Harambe’s death soon triggered a social media outburst. People took to Facebook and Twitter to call the incident a violation of animal rights; many held parents and the authorities responsible but others defended the decision to shoot the gorilla. A change.org petition titled Justice for Harambe has over 273,800 supporters so far.

A Facebook community demanding justice for him has amassed over 10,000 likes since the killing of Harambe. Several users have very unequivocally expressed their ire at the incident.

That gorilla was protecting the child. You can see it in the footage. He would have dragged his own young like that. He wasn’t exactly going to cradle the boy and sing him a lullaby....I hope the negligent parents get prosecuted for the death of this endangered animal.
Scott Mitchell Glick on ‘Justice for Harambe’

Harambe was to be used for breeding, Zoo authorities said.

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Child’s Parents Targeted by Twitterati

Demand to hold the parents accountable for the attack led the Cincinnati police department to respond on Sunday, according to Yahoo! News. While the boy’s parents have not been charged yet, authorities say they could be approached by the Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney.

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Zoo Receiving Flak

The zoo defended its decision, calling it a difficult but correct choice. Since Harambe was a 400-pound gorilla, tranquillisers would have taken time to kick into his system, leaving the child at his disposal until they did.

Our first response was to call the gorillas out of the exhibit. The two females complied, but Harambe did not. It is important to note that with the child still in the exhibit, tranquilizing the 450-pound gorilla was not an option. 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.
Thane Maynard, Director, Cincinnati Zoo

The narrative could have gone either way while they waited for the tranquillisers to overpower the already agitated animal, and the zoo authorities were not willing to take that chance.

They made a tough choice and they made the right choice because they saved that little boy’s life.
Thane Maynard, Director, Cincinnati Zoo
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PETA Comes to the Gorilla’s Defence

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) also joined the fray and lamented the loss of Harambe.

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Voices From the Other Side

However, not all condemned the parents or the zoo for negligence or improper action. There were those who asserted that human lives must come above the lives of animals in the hierarchy of existence.

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As debate around the zoo’s decision to shoot the animal and the parenting abilities of the family persists, we can only wait for a consensus that, in all probability, will never be reached.

While it is understandable to attribute a sense of kindness to the gorilla, maybe even romanticise the entire incident as involving the animal’s attempt to protect the child, no one knows for sure what he might have done in a state of agitation and panic.

Perhaps even the staunchest of animal lovers would have gone down the same road of putting the animal down if a family member faced the same potential danger as the 4-year-old in Cincinnati.

What would you have done – shoot the animal to ensure safety of a family member, or invest faith in his instinctive behaviour to not harm an innocent child? Let us know in the comments below.

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