Gorilla Shot To Save Young Boy

No, you kill the gorilla. Easy choice.

Maybe a taser would have been best, but then, they likely don't have one or the time to get it.

 

entirely at fault? you can't be serious. I guess the golden gate bridge folks are entirely at fault anytime anyone jumps off it?

 

Who's arguing for a 20 foot wall? What about the dozens of zoos across the country and world who have managed to both prevent a 4-year old from gaining access to the enclosure of a dangerous animal - and who still somehow manage to allow its patrons to see the animals? Nothing to learn from them?

And, it's ok if only a single 4-year old can circumnavigate the enclosure of a dangerous animal once every 45 years....am I understanding your point correctly?

 

maybe the dozens of other zoos haven't had a kid do what this kid did and wasn't clearly completely unsupervised by his parents? how about these idiots? zoo at fault there too? http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/unl...-teens-san-francisco-zoo-provoked-report.html

 

Oh, so other children have breached all but the final leg of the enclosure's protections in the past? And the zoo didn't make any significant changes to prevent it?

Well, well, well.

You can add a few zeroes to their settlement check, and the rest of these schleps who want to hold anyone but the zoo as being responsible can just swallow that shit-sandwich, I guess.

 

so let me get this straight. kid gets over the fence, jumps into the water and gets into the enclosure. where the **** were his parents? don't tell me a 4 year old decides to do this with the parents screaming their heads off to get the **** down.

 

Yes. The same zoo who relied upon the uninterrupted attention and exercising of immediate control of each child by an adult, so as to serve as a necessary and secondary means of preventing a 4-year old from breaching their laughably obvious and inept safeguards? They are precisely and entirely at fault.

Your analogy to the Golden Gate Bridge is flawed, as there are numerous and adequate and reasonable protections to prevent someone from jumping off, and which adults / teens purposefully circumvent those for the intended aim of jumping off. When was the last time a 4-year old fell off of the Golden Gate Bridge?

That's the difference.

 

Last question first: of course not. that is not my point at all, and if you get that from my argument, you are being argumentative just to be argumentative. It was tragic that this gorilla had to be shot, and that the boy had some serious injuries from the event. Tragic things happen every day. Kids die in car accidents. People get accidentally shot. Die of leukemia. But they happen. And the fact that this is such a rare event, as to suddenly change how every zoo operates or designs their enclosures, is ludicrous. What of the ole self-reliant attitude espoused so much on this board?

Every zoo I have ever been to has a place where you can jump over a wall and get to a wild animal. You can jump into the black bear exhibit at the Knoxville Zoo if you wished to do so. Or the rhinoceros pen. Or a myriad of other enclosures.

Many of the newer exhibits are designed so as to make this a bit harder, if not impossible, but the older ones are still that way. And it takes a lot of money to change out exhibits.

I don't understand the stance of blaming the zoo when someone jumps over a well marked, and intended, barrier.

EDIT: And I don't overly blame the parents, either. Parents get distracted, and it is tragic this happened. But it just happened, and the gorilla paid for it with his life and the boy is injured, probably traumatized, and the parents have to live with it the rest of their lives.

 

Geez, at least challenge me, Dros.

Yes, I am just kooky enough to believe that a zoo is responsible for ensuring that the walls of the tiger enclosure are of sufficient height to prevent its escape, however determined its efforts.

You're arguing because it's alleged that the kids provoked the tiger, that it somehow transfers blame for the zoo's - again - clearly inadequate wall height? If they knew that a provoked tiger could scale that wall, why not make the wall taller, or station a guard there to prevent visitors from doing such "taunting"?

Oh, that's right, they didn't want to shell out the money to do either.

Which is fine by me - pay now or pay later, but you're going to pay.

 

Yes.

 

You find no fault in the zoo, even when a 4-year old child defeated the protections surrounding the enclosure of a dangerous animal, seemingly, because it was too expensive to build proper protections.

Have I nailed down the pertinent elements of your argument?

And you're calling me silly.

 

You conveniently miss the entire point.

That a 4-year old child, however determined or physically dexterous, could gain access to the enclosure of a dangerously wild animal, is wrong.

It doesn't matter if the parents were watching or not.

It doesn't matter if they were screaming their heads off or standing in silence.

It doesn't matter if they warned him not to do it, or encouraged him.

It. Should. Not. Ever. Be. Possible.

 

which somehow worked just fine for 45 years.

you don't think a fence, a water enclosure, and another fence isn't a greater protection than whatever the hell the golden gate bridge has?

 

it's like saying that the car manufacturer is at fault because some idiot leaves their kid in a car for an hour when it's 110 degrees.

 

you dangle your foot over the wall to temp the lion to go after you and that's a you problem.

 

I could have the total number or order of barriers off but that is my understanding.

 

there is no way to make every single enclosure completely impossible to get into. that's a ridiculous standard. that is if you want to actually see the animals.

 

Oh. Well, yeah, but the kids were allegedly taunting it.

Next you're going to tell me that the zoo ultimately has some sole responsibility for the safekeeping of both its animals and patrons. Or, that a 4-year olds ability to wander into a gorilla enclosure is neither the parent's and/or the child's fault, but the zoos (you know, people who claim to be and profit from being commercialised experts at housing and caring for just such animals).

Whatever, hippie.

 

No, it's not at all the same thing. But while you're stuck on this point, let me exploit it by saying:

You can effectively secure a car with sufficient mechanisms that would prevent a 4-year old from just wandering into it, and to a point of absolute certainty.

You think it's ok that we have more easily, readily and certain means of protecting a 4-year old from wandering into any one of millions of cars...than we can similarly say for the dozens of gorillas held in zoos across the US.

 

the barrier met federal standards