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An eyewitness who saw a child fall into an animal enclosure before seeing zoo workers shoot an endangered gorilla dead has claimed the animal was NOT hurting the child... and was in fact trying to protect it.

The 17-year-old gorilla was shot dead by a zoo response team at Cincinnati Zoo yesterday when a four-year-old child fell up to 12 feet into an enclosure.

After the child fell, the gorilla - called Herambe - was seen dragging it around. That is when authorities took lethal action.

The child was taken to Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Centre and is said to have sustained no serious injuries.

An eyewitness has claimed however that the gorilla was NOT trying to hurt the child, and was instead trying to protect it.

Kim O’Connor told WLWT5: "People are yelling, 'There's a boy in the water. There's a boy in the water'."

When people began screaming, Miss O'Connor claimed that this scared the gorilla, who was at the time protecting the child.

She added: "I don't know if the screaming did it or too many people hanging on the edge, if he thought we were coming in, but then he pulled the boy down away further from the big group.

"The little boy himself had already been talking about wanting to [go into the enclosure] ... get in the water. The mother's like, 'No, you're not, no, you're not'."

Social media users have slammed the zoo for killing the gorilla, despite claims by zoo bosses that the child was in "a life-threatening situation".

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One user wrote: "Pretty sad that an endangered gorilla was killed today because parents couldn't watch their kid."

Another said: "Today, an endangered gorilla was shot at the Cincy Zoo because a toddler's parents were to damn lazy to watch their child."

Alexis Taylor wrote: "Today, an endangered gorilla was shot at the Cincy Zoo because a toddler's parents were to damn lazy to watch their child."

Director Thane Maynard said that authorities had no other choice but to put the 400-pound-plus male gorilla down.

He added: "They made a tough choice and they made the right choice because they saved that little boy's life.

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"It could have been very bad."

(Image: Reuters)

An investigation into the incident is underway, however zoo bosses claim the child crawled through a barrier before falling into the moat area.

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Mr Maynard added that this was the first time that his team had killed a zoo animal in such an emergency situation.

He called it "a very sad day" at the zoo.