I absolutely blame the Cincinnati Zoo.

[trumad]

Yeah Mom took her eye off the kid---yeah they had to kill the Gorilla because the Gorilla would have probably killed the kid.

I get it.

But how the holy fuck do you allow a human being let alone a 4 year old human being to enter a Gorilla cage is un-fucking-real.

Oh ---hey---check out that little passage way---or that little hole---I think I'll climb through the errr---unsecured barrier and fall 12 feet into the moat. Kids are fucking kids....right?

Make no mistake--- the Cincy zoo is responsible for this by a mile.

[cali]

1. I don't. Spotless record for close to 40 years and 35 million visitors.

[cali]

3. 38 years is a great record

[trumad]

5. LOL

Not anymore!

[GOLGO 13]

4. I disagree

[trumad]

6. Seriously

It's OK if the Gorilla cage was unsecure? Seriously?

[gwheezie]

7. I agree with you

This blame mom outrage is off base. When I take children to public places that are purposely attractive to children, I have the assumption that it is safe for children. That doesn't mean I don't watch them, but if I look around and see an enclosed area, why would I think a kid could get in there?

[brer cat]

18. +1000

I guess all the people furious with mom for "murdering" the gorilla are absolutely perfect parents who never for one second lost sight of their child.

[avebury]

38. You might want to consider that a place that is purposely

attractive to children might also be a place where a child could easily be abducted. So much to see so easy for parents or children to get distracted. Would you then blame the public place (like a zoo, amusement park, mall) for the child abduction? One can never assume that a public place is safe for children in this day and age.

Had the child not already loudly announced his intentions one might give the mother a pass for what happened. But the child was clear about his intentions and she still turned away from the child to focus on the other children. Common sense would indicate that there should be a certain adult to child ratio when taking a kids out to a place like a zoo to make sure that they are adequately supervised. She obviously took more children then she could properly supervise. That is flat out careless. The child could have just as easily gotten lost or abducted.

Given the fact that the woman is employed at a daycare you would expect her to have been a lot more savvy about taking children out into a public place like a zoo and concepts like adult to child ratio. I would think twice about signing up a child to that daycare and certainly would not agree to any daycare outings unless I were there to insure the safety of my own child.

[spanone]

8. K&R...

[MrsMatt]

9. I believe the greater blame falls on the mother

Reports I've read indicate she was watching several children, and this particular child had expressed a desire to play in the enclosure repeatedly before the incident.

And from what I've read, by people who are knowledgeable about the zoo, that the enclosure was not breached in a moment - it would have taken at least 5 minutes of concerted effort on the part of the child. The mother should have been watching more closely, but appeared to have been distracted by the other children she was watching.

I'm a mother (youngest is 10) and I get it. We all get distracted and don't pay enough attention. But her mistake has a body count.

[trumad]

14. Yeah---the kid had mining tools. Ugg

He should have never been able to get into that cage. Period

[MrsMatt]

17. And had his mother been paying attention

he wouldn't have.

[trumad]

26. The perfect people on DU.

Perfect in every way.

[avebury]

39. The mother works at a daycare.

I would expect her to be much more aware of the pitfalls of taking more children to the zoo without an adequate adult to child ratio. A child could easily get injured (this child did), lost, abducted, or who knows what. You cannot expect any public place to be 100% safe and to think so is foolish. It is obvious that the mother took more children to the zoo then she could properly supervise and that does make her foolish at the least and negligent at the most.

Some children do not know the concept of fear and, as such, are capable of pulling stunts like this child. These are the children that you can say don't do that and they will look you straight in the eye, grin and do it anything. This sounds like one of those kids given that he kept harping on wanting to go play with the gorillas. Those are the kind of kids that you just do not turn your back to because it is inviting trouble.

[CincyDem]

10. Great point...

...so let me ask.

On your last visit to the Cincinnati Zoo, the one where you visited the Gorilla enclosure and noticed the unsecured barrier that was so obvious a 4 year old could find it...did you mention it to anyone at the zoo as a potential safety hazard ? Without having taken the opportunity to visit the zoo at least once (let alone 2-3/year over the past 25 years)...this condemnation from afar sort of feels like CNN quoting the hair stylist observer as an expert when she said "it didn't look like he was going to hurt the child".

Blaming the parents - absolutely wrong thing to do.
Blaming the zoo - equally wrong thing to do.

While our logic minds love to attribute cause and blame, sometimes it just comes down to "chit happens".

Obviously, if you are a long time visitor to the zoo I respectfully retract my comment about you judging without knowledge. But I stand by my "chit happens" assessment.

[trumad]

12. Let me ask you this.

Was there a security flaw at this zoo?

Simple answer---yes or no?

[pintobean]

15. If there is a "security flaw" at your home

are you to blame if there's a burglary?

[CincyDem]

16. No.

There was a design flaw that took 37 years to show itself.

A security flaw would have occurred when the child fell into the enclosure and the Dangerous Animal Response Team guys were all down at Lake Cumberland enjoying a three day weekend.

I'm sure we could hypothesize other "security" flaws but a curious energetic 4 year old on a mission finding a pathway into the enclosure that's remained "hidden" for decades. Nope - to me that's just bad luck.

But I have to ask again since you have such a strong point of view on the topic - how was your visit to the Cincinnati Zoo?

[trumad]

23. Oh...a design flaw?

Ok...whatever.

[CincyDem]

29. I'm going to chalk this one up to the equivalent of ...

... I got nuttin'

Once my kids get to the "whatever" stage of a conversation, I know they've caved but haven't yet developed the ability to say it. They like to tell me it's because they don't care anymore. I get it. I don't like to stay involved in conversations, discussions or arguments that I'm "losing". I'll file your whatever right next to all of theirs.

Have a great day and enjoy what's left of the three day weekend.

[One_Life_To_Give]

11. Current standards don't require suicide proofing

We expect a person falling be it off a balcony, bridge or into a zoo enclosure to be reasonably guarded, but not impossible. I can't comment on whether this particular case was sufficiently guarded or not. Although it probably passed independent review by people who inspect zoo's for such compliance.

[trumad]

13. Well they made a serious mistake.

The Gorilla cage--space or whatever they call it was not secure.

It's pretty damn obvious.

[One_Life_To_Give]

19. Neither is the Golden Gate and thousands of other Bridges

Have no idea how many layers of protection were present. Whether any were compromised and what assumptions were about any given layer being breached. We don't have sufficient information to conclude Why there was a failure of the Safety System. But they should be thought of as Resistant to failure not Proof against failure.

[trumad]

21. You're comparing a bridge to a gorilla cage?

You funny

[Quixote1818]

20. Zoo's all over the world are built the same way. Should they all be re-vamped?

First, the parent and a crap load of people have to miss the kid climbing over a wall. Then the kid has to be stupid enough to drop down 12 feet which could kill a lot of people if they land wrong.


If a kid falls off the rim of the Grand Canyon is it the National Parks fault? Where do we draw the line on personal responsibility?

[trumad]

22. He didn't crawl over a wall.

He crawled through the fucking barrier.

[Quixote1818]

28. Kind of like this

Last edited Mon May 30, 2016, 07:25 PM - Edit history (1)

So lets make sure all the National Parks now put ten foot walls around thousands of miles of steep areas. Also, zoo's have Gov. standards they have to abide by. It's not like the zoo can make up its own rules on how the cages are designed. https://www.aza.org/uploadedfiles/accreditation/aza-accreditation-standards.pdf

[CincyDem]

30. Actually...

...I think the rail is higher (between elbow and shoulder) and it's fenced all the way to the top. Can't remember exactly but that's how a lot of them are at the Cincinnati Zoo.

[trumad]

35. It's a fucking Gorilla.

[cherokeeprogressive]

24. Many accidents are caused by a cascading series of events. I'd say there's blame to share.

But having a kid-proof enclosure is very much a necessity and if I were a zoo Director I'd damn sure be conducting a survey of my facility.

[rug]

25. I've been arging with my wife over this all day.

I now have the weight of trumad behind me.

[madinmaryland]

32. Heh! So your wife now has you on ignore, like

joeybee12 has trumad on ignore!!

[trumad]

36. Snarf

Really don't have him on ignore. Wish I did.

[Dr. Strange]

41. Which means she's probably thinking...

"See? I knew I was right!"

[jberryhill]

27. Yes, it goes without saying

Humans are clever primates, and the animals need adequate protection from them.

By definition, dangerous animals should not be accessible to humans at a zoo.

[angstlessk]

31. Don't zoos have tranqualizer guns?

They obviously have deadly weapons!

[UTUSN]

33. Neh

[Logical]

34. LOL, for 30 years parents kept their kids out of the cage. I blame the idiotic parents. nt

[trumad]

37. Really shacking my heads at these replies.

Shouldn't a zoo be safe just in case of stupid parents.

[snooper2]

45. Natural Selection

[Odin2005]

40. There needs to be a wall with one-way glass.

The one-way glass is important because male gorillas instinctive get enraged if they are looked at directly, they see it as challenging their dominance. I saw a video on YouTube of a male gorilla charging at the glass and scaring the shit out of some kids because of this.

[jack_krass]

42. The parents are to blame here. The Zoo exhibit meets federal guidelines

FFS, we cant make everything 100% safe. Watch your fuking kids!

[trumad]

43. Federal guidelines say..

leave a hole for a 4 year old to climb through.

[jack_krass]

44. Federal guidlines for bridges say "make a rail a 4 year old cannot climb"?

No, because governments, zoos, city regulations cannot, and could never prevent every form of danger a toddler can get into. All we can hope for is reasonable guidelines.

Parents must take ultimate responsibility for watching their children and keeping them out of this sort of trouble.

[trumad]

46. Should they fix the hole?

[jack_krass]

48. If its as simple as plugging a hole, yes, but I have a feeling it's not. If it were,

then the exhibit woud not have passed federal regulations, and this would be happening more often. I'll reserve judgement on the zoo until I see the particulars (which I've yet to do).

The one thing I can say with certainty is that if the parents had watched their kid, this magnificent animal would still be alive.

[bigwillq]

47. I agree

K and R