Brilio.net/en - Mommy loves you! Im right here is all the poor, scared mother could yell out to comfort her son in what she imagined to be his last minutes she watched her 4-year old son get dragged by a silverback gorilla in his enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo.
The young boy has somehow managed to slip throw the exhibits barrier and slipped just out of reach of his mothers grip as he tried to pull him back. He fell 3 meters into the enclosure and was being dragged like a rag doll by a towering Gorilla male.
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Harambe, the name of the teenaged western lowland gorilla, took the child but his intentions werent clear. It seemed as if he was trying to stand protectively over the boy at some points and at others dragging him through the water roughly by his arm. The gorilla could with no effort have crushed the young boy, even only by accident.
The zoo said in a statement that the decision to use lethal force on the animal had been a difficult one to make, but was the safest for the child. Neutralizing him with a tranquiller would have taken several minutes and thereby only prolonging the risk to the child. The boy was taken to the hospital but miraculously sustained no serious injuries.
The zoos security teams quick response saved the childs life, the zoos director Thane Maynard said. We are all devastated that this tragic accident resulted in the death of a critically endangered gorilla. This is a huge loss for the zoo family and the gorilla population worldwide. According to the zoo, there are less that 175,000 left in the wild and due to disease and poachers that number only continues to decrease. The zoo described Harambe as an intelligent and curious animal who was on his way to becoming the group leader. On Friday, the zoo celebrated his 17th birthday.
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While Mr. Maynard had a nice response to the death of the animal, he had no apparent answer to questions regarding the apparent ease with which the boy even ended up in the grips of the gorilla. Bystanders such as Brittany Nicely commented that the mother wasnt neglectful and that the incident happened in the blink of an eye. I dont feel like it was neglectful, she said. She had three other kids that she was with. She had a baby in her arms. It was literally the blink of an eye. I saw it happen and I couldnt even prevent it.
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