The Cincinnati Gorilla

Like many people, I've been inundated with conversations about a child, unsupervised, crawling under a railing, through a few feet of thick shrubs, falling fifteen feet into the gorilla exhibit at the Cincinnati Zoo, only to be dragged around the exhibit by a gorilla who clearly was agitated, confused, and (in my opinion) trying to help the boy.  The gorilla was put down by zoo officials.

I don't want to dwell on this too long, as it takes away from the bevy of real news out there, but incidents like this do spur a lot of conversation.  So let's converse...

I'm torn on zoos.  In some cases, animal species would be wiped out if not for the conservation measures of zoos.  Also, there are a lot of animals (buffalo, reindeer, tortoises) who actually have been domesticated and/or thrive in a controlled environment.

On the other side, it's a freaking gorilla!  Lions, tigers, bears...these are all wild animals where the wild can't be bred out of them.  These are species who were never meant to occupy a small confined living space.  While a creature like an Amur Leopard would be extinct if not for keeping them in zoos, they're by nature extremely dangerous.  A discussion about the place zoos fulfill in the animal world can, and should, happen, but not in this post.

In my opinion, the zoo had no other option.  Life is not a Disney film.  That's an unpredictable gorilla, who could throw the 4 year old 50 feet, stomp on the boy and crush him, or even rip the child in two.  The zoo had to do what they did.  Doesn't mean it's not sad.

I've also gotten a lot of "why are we so concerned about gorillas, when people are far more important."  Agreed, only Batman villains want humanity wiped out for the sake of plants and animals, but most people who lament the gorilla coverage are only wishing they could get similar coverage of the issue important to them.  It's like when the supporters of other charitable groups complained about the ALS ice bucket challenge because it was TOO popular.  Try not to be petty.

My favorite zoo moment of all time was when I was at the Como Zoo, looking at the Snow Leopard.  A mother, who had the look of a meth addict, and her unruly child, were throwing popcorn to the leopard, past signs which clearly stated, 'Don't Feed the Animals!'  I mentioned to the woman, "your son probably shouldn't be throwing popcorn to the animals."  The Debrie Bardeaux wannabe smugly looked at me with disgust, "Keep feeding him Dylan.  He likes it!"  There are A LOT of idiots on this planet.

The mom of the boy who fell into the gorilla cage wasn't an idiot, but she's mostly responsible for her son ending up in there.  I understand accidents happen, but most of us aren't so absent supervising our children our kids end up falling into zoo paddocks.  Doesn't mean the zoo is completely without fault.  Even though it had never happened before, this 4 year old boy did it, which means there was a hole in their security.  There's plenty of fault to go around, but at the end of the day, mom wasn't paying attention to her child.

People who act as if the mom is no different than other parents who lose sight of their kid, I really disagree.  Yes, it wasn't like she left the child unsupervised on a safari, but it still was a zoo, with animals who eat people.  The boy was four, not 9.  She should've been keeping a closer eye on him.  Forgetting the zoo for a second, she lost track of her child around a 15 foot wall.  If that happened at your neighborhood playground, with a mom more concerned about Facebook and Pinterest posts, would you be so forgiving?  Blame can be spread around, but for me, most of the blame should be shouldered by the mother.  Doesn't mean accidents don't happen.  Doesn't mean she's a bad mom.

Don't worry, supporters of the mom.  She'll get a big payday from the inevitable lawsuit.

This incident does hit home for me because of a trip I took this last weekend.  My wife and I took the kids to South Dakota.  We went to Badlands National Park.  If you enter the park from the Wall, SD entrance, and start traveling east, you immediately come to a scenic overview of the stunning geology on display, going miles in every direction.  There's a parking lot, some stairs down, and then a circular path which takes you to various vistas.  At the bottom of the stairs, many people, wanting to walk directly to the main viewing area, have cut through the grass, creating an unofficial path.  My youngest daughter, who's 9, started to walk on this cut through when I stopped her.  I pointed to a sign saying 'Watch out for rattlesnakes,' told her to stay off that trail, and she quickly followed the designated, well designed, official path.

Not more than a minute later, a kid comes scrambling off the cut through saying, "look out! There's a rattlesnake!"

If I left my 9 year old unsupervised, and she got bitten by a rattlesnake, on an unofficial path in Badlands National Park, would you feel the park was to blame?  Would I'd been a bad parent?  Would she have just been the victim of an unfortunate accident?  Would we be having discussions about the responsibility of the Federal Government to remove all rattlesnakes from national parks, or how they should have fixed that unofficial walkthrough?

We're not discussing these questions because I did my job.