Animal cruelty is scary, but watching your three-year-old son being attacked by a wild creature is scary, too.

Last weekend, millions of Americans watched the news in terror as a young boy fell into a gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo. The suspense drastically increased when footage showed Harambe, a resident gorilla, dragged the boy across the ground of the enclosure and prepared to toss him into the small lake.

Luckily, the boy was rescued shortly thereafter. Unluckily, that little boy’s rescue cost the life of the endangered gorilla who attacked him.

The action of shooting the gorilla has been called irrational, unfair, and cruel - to say the least.

I must admit, my initial reaction to the killing of Harambe was not unlike the majority reaction of Americans when this news hit the airwaves. I was shocked that another defenseless animal had been killed at the hands of some vicious human and blamed the death of the gorilla on the four-year-old’s irresponsible parents. It seemed to me as though the gorilla was doing a better job of watching the child than his own parents!

However, just a few days ago, when I saw the footage again (in addition to an interview with the Cincinnati Zoo director), I started to read the story from a different narrator. I began to ask myself: What if that was my son?

The zoo director had defended the killing of the animal, saying “That child’s life was in danger. People who question that don’t understand you can’t take a risk with a silverback gorilla — this is a dangerous animal."

I don’t want to come off as being in defense of the Cincinnati Zoo, nor do I want to come off as one who is against the death of Harambe. Both sides of this debate have equal reason to be upset — an endangered animal being killed so suddenly, a zoo trying to protect the safety of its visitors — but I’d like to say this. Animal lives matter, childrens' lives matter, all lives matter!

Ask yourself this: When one form of life attacks another form of life, which life matters more — the life of the victim or the life of the perpetrator?

Where do we draw the line between bad parenting and keeping people safe? There’s no definite answer to this question, but all creatures can come to the conclusion that when our lives our threatened, we act quickly.

Harambe was alarmed when he saw a three-year-old boy suddenly land in his home. He acted quickly because he thought the boy had meant to hurt him. We know the boy only wanted a closer look—Harambe did not know this.

Zookeepers were alarmed when they saw a defenseless boy being mercilessly dragged along the ground by an angry-looking gorilla. They acted quickly because they knew the gorilla would kill the boy if action wasn’t taken.

Animals and humans are very much alike, and one thing we have in common is when we are attacked, we will always act.