One of the most popular news stories this week has been the incident involving Harambe the gorilla and the Cincinnati Zoo. On Sat., May 28, a young boy climbed into the gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo and encountered Harambe, the zoo’s 17-year-old Western lowland silverback gorilla. Harambe dragged the child around the enclosure for about 10 minutes before zoo officials stepped in and shot and killed Harambe, then pulling the child back up.
People everywhere were horrified to hear of the incident and demanding that someone be held accountable for what happened and punished. It is difficult, however, to solely blame one party, as many were involved in the incident. The questions remains, then, who is to be held accountable for the death of Harambe?
I believe the blame should be put on both the mother of the boy and on the zoo. The mother is at fault for not looking after her child more carefully and allowing him to escape her sight for long enough to wander into the exhibit. In the same respect, the zoo is at fault for not considering all options in getting Harambe away from the boy, as expert gorilla trainers have already come out and said that more, less violent options could have been taken. In regard to the mother’s fault, a recent video by animal expert Jeff Corwin in response to this event sums it up perfectly: Zoos are not your babysitters. You, as a parent, are responsible for the actions and whereabouts of your child, and you should not rely on the zoo staff to protect them. Not keeping careful watch over them in a place where their curiosity can cause harm to themselves or other creatures is neglectful, careless and foolish.
In regard to the zoo’s fault, their decision to immediately resort to violent action and not take other solutions in account was clearly a poor one. As previously mentioned, many other animal and gorilla experts have made public statements condemning the Cincinnati Zoo for their decision and noting the many different measures that could have been taken that would have allowed Harambe and the boy to live. One of these experts is Ian Redmond, chairman of The Gorilla Organization, who suggested that working with Harambe’s keeper would have been the best way to handle the situation. As Harambe was raised in captivity, he had relations with his trainer for his entire life. Additionally, Redmond noted that Harambe wasn’t exhibiting any violent behavior toward the boy; he claims that “clearly if a silverback wanted to kill a child, he could do so in an instant. But he didn’t.” Simply having Harambe’s trainer distract him with his favorite food or toy would have been enough for other keepers to come in and get the boy.
Additionally, the zoo's enclosure for Harambe should have been more fortified. Although the director of the Cincinnati Zoo claimed that their enclosure was safe and up to standards, recent insight has proved that this was not the case. The zoo's failure to have a safe exhibit is another factor that demonstrates their fault in the incident.
Chalking the incident up to “accidents happen” or “we did what we had to do” undermines the severity of the situation and does not force the parties involved to take responsibility for their actions. It is also important to remember that the Western lowland silverback is an extremely endangered species; there are fewer than 175,000 left in the world, and killing Harambe only hurt chances to reviving the species’ population. Assigning accountability to the parties involved is extremely important because it can assure that this kind of incident does not happen again.
