Six Theories of Gorilla
by Pat Pujolas
1. BLAME THE PARENTS
This seems to be the most popular position on social platforms. Mom and Dad should have been watching this kid more closely. Period. Because how could any good parent fail to notice their own child climbing over a three-foot fence, crawling through some bushes, and falling into the barrier moat at the Cincinnati Zoo's Gorilla World exhibit? Unforgivable. Gorillas are dangerous animals, and the parents should have been on their highest alert. As such, these people deserve our harshest criticisms and/or Internet memes.
2. BLAME THE KID
One eyewitness claims the boy joked about getting into the water before taking off to do just that. What three-year-old says and does that sort of thing? A real ragamuffin, that's who. The Mom surely knew from experience to keep a close eye on this particular boy. We know because there's a little trick that parents do when in public places: make your kid stick their hand(s) in your back pocket to distract them and keep them close. The Mom did this to snap a picture, but the boy pulled free and ran anyway. What a rascal!
3. BLAME THE GORILLA
Anyone who watches the video can see Harambe (ironically, Swahili for “pull together”), a 450-pound primate, roughly dragging a tiny human being through shallow water. A former zookeeper notes: “Harambe was most likely not going to separate himself from that child without seriously hurting him first.” But just as many people see the gorilla protecting the boy, pulling his pants up, holding hands with him, and only reacting to the commotion and screams from above. There's also footage from 30 years ago of a silverback watching over a fallen, unconscious boy at an English zoo until help arrived. So, what were Harambe's intentions? Can anyone really say?
4. BLAME THE CINCINNATI ZOO
If a three-year-old can get past your security measures, are they really all that great? The Cincinnati Zoo is the second oldest zoo in the United States and has earned accreditation by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums for over 25 years (Google it, Fonzie.) In accordance with the Animal Welfare Act, the U.S. Department of Agriculture inspects all zoos twice annually to ensure animal and visitor safety. If there were violations involving Gorilla World (est. 1978), they were overlooked fifty-some times. And somehow survived millions of zoo-goers without incident, until recently.
5. BLAME ZOOS IN GENERAL
The year is 2016, and we're still trapping and transporting wild animals for info-tainment. Have we learned nothing since the dawn of mankind? Really, with the advent of the Internet (and now virtual reality), who needs a public zoo? Some might respond: the animals do. Animals in captivity receive healthcare, food, and protection. And if we the people never experience these rare animals in close proximity, would we still care about their extinction in faraway places? Only one way to find out.
6. BLAME HUMANITY
The human race is far from perfect. Sometimes we let children out of our sight, even for a brief moment. Sometimes we make poor decisions, especially before our minds are fully developed. Sometimes sheer emotion overpowers our renowned ability to reason. We demand swift justice when an innocent being is killed. Our brains, it seems, are hard-wired for reciprocity. Blame must be dispensed; punishment must be given. It's how we cope in the wake of tragedy. It's how we, as a social species, have co-existed for thousands of years. A member of our tribe has fallen, and we have to keep moving forward, the only way we know how.
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It's sometimes difficult to accept that we aren't always in a position to choose, but that some actions, at least statistically, are predetermined by decisions made long ago. These decisions pile up to produce inevitabilities Given wild animals in only partially protected enclosures it is inevitable at some point that a human will venture too close, and one or the other will have to die as a result, perhaps both. The result is then tragedy, a proposition to be best understood by reading Sophocles, specifically "Oedipus Rex." We humans do what we do, accept it for the most part, justify or blame when the result is not to our liking. Sometime, long past, someone decided enclosing wild animals for human entertainment was a good thing. We can go or not go, enjoy or lament, but it is not in our power to unchoose that original choice and its consequences.
I've avoided looking at the video and even reading much about this. Too sad and awful, in many ways. But it raises questions we all should face and think about, if not try to answer. But if blame need be placed, I would blame the idea of zoos. *
This whole incident feels like something out of "A Modest Proposal".*
Thanks for writing this. I think it's an important conversation to have--about all of us. I wrote about the incident also at Olentangy Review recently, under the blog heading of Good Eye. It's called "Another Zoo Story." Again, Pat, I applaud you raising the question. Good job.