Conservation advocates question decision to kill Harambe after boy entered enclosure: ‘If the only protocol was shoot to kill, then they were small-minded’

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Leading animal conservation experts are challenging Cincinnati zoo’s decision to shoot dead a male gorilla when a young boy entered its enclosure over the weekend, amid wider safety concerns.

Adam Roberts, chairman of the animal welfare advocacy group Born Free USA, said there was a big question mark over whether it would have been safer to tranquilize the gorilla, named Harambe, at the zoo on Saturday after it began dragging the child around its enclosure.

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“I feel for the people who had to make the decision to shoot the gorilla, but we should never have had this incident in the first place,” he said.

The episode sparked a flood of public comment, especially on social media. A lot of it was critical of the parents, some viciously so, and there was both support and condemnation for the zoo, which has defended its actions.

Jack Hanna, a prominent zoo expert, has sprung to the zoo’s defense, saying the time lag before the tranquilizer took effect would have been too dangerous.

But Roberts argued that shooting the gorilla dead could have crushed the child as the animal collapsed.

“It’s a miracle that the boy survived,” he said. “The zoo needs to be open about everything that happened between the alarm being raised and the shot being fired.”

Roberts challenged the zoo to explain whether it had been prepared for scenarios other than the ones it has talked about publicly – calling all the gorillas in the enclosure away from the scene and then, when Harambe had failed to respond and was manhandling the child, shooting the animal.

“This should be the biggest question for every zoo after this incident – do we have the right protocols in place? If the only protocol was shoot to kill, then I think they were small-minded,” he said.

Ian Redmond, chairman of the UK-based conservation charity the Gorilla Organisation, said he would like to know if staff at the zoo tried distracting Harambe with treats, rather than shooting him.

“The zoo hasn’t talked about whether they tried to negotiate – talking to the animal calmly and offering him fruit ... because gorillas have a reasoning mind,” he said.

Redmond said the gorilla was clearly agitated but it appeared more of a mix of stress and curiosity than aggression.

“Was a lethal shot the only option? No, I don’t think so. Were other options tried? You could have offered the gorilla more fruit than he could ever normally imagine in one sitting and then the boy would have become less interesting to him. It seemed like no one was prepared to go into the enclosure.” he said.

Redmond pointed out in an op-ed for the Guardian that the gorilla’s dragging of the boy through the enclosure resembled behavior apes would display in the wild, dragging branches or fellow apes through the forest, where surfaces are typically more forgiving than the concrete of the zoo enclosure.

He also suggested the option of a line of staff entering the enclosure and advancing towards Harambe with a determined demeanor.

“In such a situation, the silverback gorilla tends to back down,” he said.

Redmond called for a public inquiry into the incident. Lowland gorillas like Harambe are endangered. The gorilla was born in captivity in Texas and transferred to Ohio last year.

Federal inspectors are looking into the zoo’s actions and the Cincinnati police department is investigating the parents of the three-year-old boy.

The child escaped his family’s control at the zoo on Saturday afternoon and climbed over a 3ft steel fence, crossed through some undergrowth and fell 15ft into a shallow moat in the gorilla pen.

“I’m surprised he survived the fall,” said Redmond.

The zoo said on Monday that no one had breached the barriers at the Gorilla World exhibit since they were installed 38 years ago.

“This has been an accident waiting to happen for 38 years,” Redmond retorted.

Roberts’ organization, Born Free USA, operates a database that has logged more than 2,300 incidents in the last 20 years of dangerous encounters between humans and exotic animals. Most of the entries, gathered from news and public reports, concern people getting into scrapes with exotic pets such as snakes. And most zoo accidents do not involve the paying public.

Still, the group logs risky incidents and even fatalities and serious injuries involving the public at US zoos, including 20 episodes of dangerous encounters with gorillas, such as an ape that escaped his cage at the Buffalo zoo in 2012 and bit a zookeeper and a gorilla that attacked several people after absconding from his enclosure at the Dallas zoo in 2004 was shot dead by police.

“Time and time again, people are being injured or animals are being killed, or both, and it suggests a very dangerous situation,” said Roberts.

There are examples in the past when young children have slipped down a drop into gorilla enclosures and been knocked out by the fall, whereupon an ape has tended to them gently.



Thane Maynard, the director of the Cincinnati zoo, said on Monday that the staff decided the boy was in mortal danger because the gorilla was agitated and acting erratically, and because of his enormous strength – able to crush a coconut in his hands with little effort.

Maynard added that the barriers at the zoo complied with all federal regulations and inspections. He said the zoo was reviewing its safety policies and barriers at Gorilla World.

Roberts called for major improvements to all US zoos.

But Pat Janikowski, president and owner of the Seattle-based architecture firm PJA, which designs zoos around the world and built the Animal Kingdom exhibit at the Disney World resort in Orlando, Florida, said the enclosure in question, as described by the Cincinnati zoo, was “absolutely standard”.

He said that both European and American regulations dictating the characteristics of animal enclosures at zoos are very similar.

Janikowski said the zoo’s description and public images of Gorilla World’s outdoor enclosure, with rocks and a sunken moat, is a popular type of gorilla exhibit.

“It gives the zoo what they are going for: an open-air view. Because one of the magnificent things about gorillas is to be able to smell their unique, pungent scent and hear the sound when they beat their chests,” he said.

He added that if the zoo has complied with all the official regulations to the letter, in his opinion it would be difficult to see how they could lose a lawsuit, should the family of the boy choose to file one.