A Western Lowland Gorilla, Harambe, recently made the news and unfortunately, it wasn't because of his just-celebrated 17th birthday. The gorilla, an inhabitant of the Cincinnati Zoo since 2014, drew media attention after he was killed following a 4-year-old boy's fall into his habitat. Many zoo-goers witnessed the horrific events unfold and captured them on camera so that the whole world could see. In the beginning of the video, which I have linked to at the bottom of this page, Harambe appears to be standing over the child in a protective manner. In another part of the video, he stands the child up and pulls his pants up from where they had fallen down. Even more shockingly, Harambe appears to take and hold the child's hand. These acts, however, were overshadowed when bystanders and zookeepers saw Harambe drag the boy through the water by his hand. Some argue that Harambe was dangerous and was toying with the little boy's life; others claim that he was removing the child from the screaming crowd in order to protect him.

Naturally, as is always the way, everyone in the world quickly formed an opinion on whether the zoo made the right choice in lethally shooting Harambe. Many blame the mother for allowing her child to slip away in the gorilla's habitat. Others say the zoo should have better procedures in place for situations like this, and the gorilla should have been shot with tranquilizers. Cincinnati Zoo, however, released a statement that they stand by the choice that they made and would make the same choice again.

With many varying opinions and versions of events, it is impossible for anyone to make a clear decision about what was ethically right and wrong in that moment. In all the confusion and hype, we have forgotten the importance of learning from this incident to prevent tragedy from happening again in the future. The incident and the reaction that followed sheds light on some "less-than-great" characteristics of human nature that we would all do well to note.

First, we as humans will always treasure our life over that of another's. I am, of course, making a generalization about humankind as a whole and am not saying that this applies to every individual on the planet. Generally speaking, however, humans always protect themselves before anyone or anything else. We view ourselves as genetically superior to all other lifeforms and will much more quickly make a decision to take another's life over our own. It happens with dogs who bite a human (if reported) and have to be immediately "euthanized". It happens when older humans are scratched by their cats and either get rid of them or de-claw them (which is a whole other argument that I will not get into here). It happens when we kill alligators who bite the arm off a human who entered their lake (if you're from Florida, you know what I'm talking about). We are a species that views itself as greater than other beings. Our lives are worth more than theirs. So when a 4-year-old boy enters a gorilla's habitat and may be in danger of injury, our first thought is to quickly eliminate the threat, even if that threat is a so-far innocent, living, breathing, critically endangered creature. In making the choice they made, the zookeepers decided that the boy's life was more important than the gorilla's, a choice dictated by human nature's superiority complex.

Next, humans always want to find someone to blame and punish. We are quick to form an opinion on why an event occurs and who is at fault. Our society of recent years has become very "lawsuit happy," meaning that whenever something goes wrong or we don't like something we want to point fingers and sue someone for it. Did you hear of the person who sued McDonald's for burns from spilling their coffee? How about the man who is currently suing McDonald's for the "mental anguish" of only receiving one napkin with his order? It's easy to laugh at these cases and blow them off as trivial, but doesn't that shed a little light on the state of our society? Why are we so quick to place blame on others about everything? More importantly, how does the finger-pointing fix the problem? The woman may have received money for her medical bills, but she still has to live her life with the remainder of burns on thighs and the fear of drinking coffee in the car. PETA blames the zoo and captivity for Harambe's death, but does that bring him back to life? Does the public blaming the little boy's mother for not watching him more closely change the fact that the boy fell in the cage? Or was hospitalized? Or Harambe was killed? Will punishing the zoo, the child or his mother for Harambe's death change the outcome of the situation? No, it will not; yet humans are still playing the blame game as our nature has taught us to.

Whether Harambe wanted to nurture or hurt the child in his habitat, we will never know. It is impossible for any one of us to know with 100 percent certainty what Harambe was thinking during this encounter and anything we say about his motives is pure speculation. We cannot change the outcome of the situation now but we could focus our efforts on improving our society to prevent further tragedy in the future.

Specifically for the little boy: Petition zoos to make positive safety changes such as building walls and higher fences to prevent children slipping in.

Specifically for Harambe: Petition zoos to review their safety plans in case of emergency and urge them to consider the best options to prevent loss of life (ALL life, not just human).

Specifically for our society as a whole: Try to place less blame and care about others a little more.

Let's memorialize Harambe by making positive changes to our world and the lives of all of us, gorilla and man alike.