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i feel bad for the mother. i hope they continue to keep her name out of the spotlight. she will have a hit on her in no time. how horrifying that must have been for her. it's heartbreaking that the gorilla had to be killed because it truly did not do anything wrong. but the child was being a child and got himself into a horrible predicament. i hope she is not reading all of the hateful things people are saying all around the internet.
i know i'm not perfect and i have turned around to find my son not right there where he was supposed to be. you go through horrible panic. i couldn't find my son at a water park once. the panic. oh the panic. turned out he was just joyfully playing with some water spout thing with not a care in the world. a man saw me frantic (he instantly said "i can see the look of a mother in search of her child!") and he started looking with me, my boyfriend at the time was also searching. it was awful. i can't imagine how horrifying it would be to see your child down there with that gorilla. if i could go back now i'd thank that man for helping me instead of putting me on the stake for the mob to have their way with me. well, i mean i did thank him. but honestly i was so relieved to see my son that i probably didn't thank him enough for caring to help.
the cruelty of people towards this mother is, i don't even know the word...
Playing the Devil's Advocate again: People that have been tossed into cages by society were once 3 year old children. At what age does our umbrella of protection for a human being end? When they are no longer 'cute'?
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Originally Posted by MPowering1
At the age they commit some crime warranting being tossed into a cage.
Thank you. I asked a question and you responded with an answer.
While these 'once 3 year olds' are in that cage, and pretty much at the mercy of others, should they be protected by society from being killed by human versions of gorillas? There are quite a few folks on another thread that not only believe that they should be brutally killed but they also relish the idea of their being killed. All I'm doing here is questioning society norms and as to how they change based on one's age and circumstances.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MPowering1
Are you really seriously unaware of society norms or are you just bored?
As above, I'm merely questioning society's norms which are often inconsistent.
And, I'm no more, nor less, any more bored than anyone else on this thread.
We're all here having a good time and basically regurgitating the same thing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MPowering1
Genuinely asking here.
As am I.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MPowering1
And by the way, when they're tossed in a cage, it's for the protection of other human beings.
Yes. Some are. Most are not. Regardless, are they still under the same umbrella of protection from society as they were when they were 3 year olds?
I learn much about human beings by asking questions ...always have and still do.
I'm sorry, they are better than us. Get your head out of your ass and look around at the damage HUMANS and only HUMANS are doing to other creatures and the world. No comparison.
After seeing the video, I am shocked at how long that beast was able to toy with the child before being shot. It should have been seconds, not minutes. No dumb animal is worth the price of a human being. Disgusting and disturbing that the AR freaks are coming out of the woodwork. Please go back.
That poor little boy is going to have nightmares of the gorilla for years......
The point was made already that really
needs to be addressed:
Why did it take 10 minutes of the animal throwing the boy around before anything was done?
It should have been a lot faster.
And the parent should be charged......
Make her be an example.
Too many stupid parents out there ignoring what their kids are doing
Why couldn't they have just shot the gorilla in the leg?!
Horambe was a mature male gorilla, a silverback. He was already quite agitated; dragging the child around in the water quite roughly. What do you think Horombe would have done if he had been shot? Sat down quietly and waited for help? He would have been angry and frightened and in pain, and very likely would have lashed out in that pain, and hurt or killed the child.
Much as I respect animals, I think the zookeepers made the right choice; or at least the lesser of two evils. That doesn't mean I'm happy about it! I hate it that Horambe had to be killed; and wonder how a child was able to slip into the enclosure so easily. If the mother could not control her child near an enclosure of potentially dangerous wild animals, she should have left all the children at home, or had the child restrained with a harness.
I heard the experts stating that tranquilizers could have angered this gorilla and harm the kid but why not try the tranquilizer shot and aim to kill IF the gorilla acts out.
Wasn't that an option in this case. I feel so sorry this animal and other animals get killed due to stupid human errors or purposely acting of humans by feeding animals in the wild and than the animal attacks them after being fed or bullied by a human being.
Just this month a man in Florida hid from the cops and went into a lake. When he came out he had lost part of his arm and hand and the alligator was killed due to grabbing the stupid man who caused this on himself and even the man said in an interview that he didn't feel the alligator was to be blamed and should not have been killed.Lakeland man who lost hand to gator speaks out
Things like that happen all the time in FL. Years back, a guy was breaking in to cars at the Miccosukee casino, security started to come after him, he ran, jumped in to the canal to hide, landed right on top of an alligator, was munched, and the gator got killed. I can't even tell you how many times the wildlife there was killed because of stupid humans. Like I said earlier, everyone wants to hiss and cry about the "dangerous" wild animals, but they fail to realize that we humans are the most dangerous animal on this planet. We have this "we are superior" attitude, and with that comes arrogance, selfishness, and stupidity.
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Originally Posted by markg91359
Because humans are recognized as being unique and having rights through social convention while other forms of life are not. I doubt its really any deeper than that.
However, that's not the point. The point is that there is huge consensus among humans to that effect.
If someone wants to believe that animals are equal and should enjoy certain rights they are completely entitled to that belief. What they are not entitled to do is act upon it. For example, the minute a zoo keeper decides "I'm not going to kill that gorilla to save a child because I like gorillas more than I do people" than I will do everything in my power to remove that zoo keeper from his position.
Some concepts in our society are simply based on convention and everyone is free to challenge those conventions. When they choose to act though in a manner that disregards those conventions they are going to have a big problem.
You may not like that answer, but that's about as deep as it gets.
It is ONLY humans who believe that they are superior...that doesn't mean that humans actually are. I think this is an outdated belief that animals have no emotions, are dumb, and have no conscious thoughts beyond: eat food, procreate, sleep. I think humans are incredibly ignorant..painfully stupid when it comes to understanding just how intelligent animals actually are. The idea that we are superior comes from years of human arrogance and stupidity. You may not like that answer, but it really is that deep. Depending on your beliefs, humans may actually be less important than other animals...but not once in my life was I ever taught, thankfully, that animals were "beneath us". Such arrogance....I can't even stand it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by New Horizons
That's a good point. If anything Horambe's life was more rare and valuable than the child's. Horambe generated more monetary revenue just for existing, than probably the child will in his working career. And if the child had died, well it would have been a tragedy too. But, there certainly is no shortage of "loin-spoils" from humans on this planet. And there wouldn't have been as much public outcry of the child getting maimed or killed. Those parents can pump out another baby by next December or January.
But then I'm not a parent so I guess I wouldn't understand these things.
While someone called you immature, when it comes to Mother Nature, what you said is accurate. In the end, the only species that considers humans "better" are humans. And while we do have some intelligent people out there, the majority don't contribute a thing.
i know i'm not perfect and i have turned around to find my son not right there where he was supposed to be. you go through horrible panic. i couldn't find my son at a water park once. the panic. oh the panic. turned out he was just joyfully playing with some water spout thing with not a care in the world.
*************
the cruelty of people towards this mother is, i don't even know the word...
I have three stories that I provoked, the first as a three year old child and the second and third when I was a teenager.
I disappeared in the Lord & Taylor department store in 1960, when I was about three years old. During that time I turned the switch on the escalator, closing it. When I was found I told my mother, "I knew where I was."
n February 1972 when I was a few months shy of 15, my parents took me to Barbados. I told my parents that I was going to listen to some calypso music in the night club. There were in fact two night clubs at the Barbados Hilton and I selected the one with music more to my liking (closer to real island music) than the other one. The one I selected was on the beach; the one they thought I was in was in the lobby of the hotel. Panic on their part ensued. They wound up finding me fairly easily but they were very upset. I felt I had done nothing wrong since I was planning on returning to the hotel room by my 11 PM curfew.
In fact I was the one who was upset. I was chatting with a doctor about my father's operation the previous September for rectal cancer He basically told me there was zero chance it was lifesaving.
In March 1973, when I was a month short of turning 16, my father already having died that January, my mother and grandmother took me for a long weekend to the Bahamas. We were staying at the Sonesta Beach hotel, a short distance outside Nassau. I reluctantly accompanied them into Nassau for some shopping. Upon the bus’ arrival I decided I was not interested in their planned activity. I asked them for permission to go to Nassau’s zoo, where I heard they were selling turtle soup. I was always into exotic foods as well as music (see Paragraph 2 above).
I walked to the bus “terminal,” really an outdoor affair, and quickly concluded that my plan wouldn’t work. Too long between transfers and no way I’d make it back to the hotel before our agreed meeting time. My mother and grandmother were out of sight. No cell phones those days. I returned to the hotel and went to play tennis with two Canadian girls I had met and a “fourth.” My grandmother and mother returned and were frantic even though I was safely playing tennis and well able to keep myself safe.
The point I am making is that any parent will get frantic when losing track of their child, even when it is not their fault.
If you watch the video taken, the gorilla wasnt attacking the child either.
and the parents just want to blame the zoo and get a check instead of saying they didnt have a close eye on him or in a stroller. Our zoo can get pretty busy with people.
I dont have a zoo pass or id go and share a pic that the child could not have just slipped through the gate unnoticed, its just not possible.
Ive heard the Columbus Zoo is really neat, not that i want to travel 1hr-2hr away but maybe there they have more common sense.
The gorilla seemed to be treating the child as a toy, or a possession; dragging him roughly through the water. I don't think that the gorilla initially meant to harm the boy; but the shouts of the crowd could have provoked him to claim the child and manhandle him. It was a tragedy. I'm glad that the boy is unharmed; but that might not have been the outcome if the zoo staff had shot a tranquilizer dart into the gorilla, or just waited, or gone into the enclosure themselves. I feel bad for the gorilla, who was an innocent wild creature minding his own business until the kid intruded (why wasn't the mother keeping a closer eye on him).
In the 1990's this same thing happened at Brookfield Zoo to a friends son. See video in the link that KittenSparkles posted on the previous page. Nobody judged the parents, which was good, because these are extremely responsible people. But nobody is on top of everything 100% of the time, and that's why the word 'accident' exists.
[snip]
Today, the minute there is news that someone did anything wrong, misstepped, or had a rare occasion of using poor judgment, the lynch mob comes out full force and the witch hunt begins. And now we're digging up her husbands criminal record to further indict her. Aren't we all so superior?
The fact that there exists a petition with over 100,000 signatures calling for the parents to have to pay some price, perfectly illustrates the punitive approach we have toward anyone we feel has done something wrong.
This may be the best post of the entire thread.
I also like to think of "baby Jessica" from the 1980s, Jessica McClure. She fell into a well as a toddler playing in her aunt's yard. She almost died from the incident. The whole community rallied around not only the baby but the family, including the aunt who "negligently" let an 18-month old play in the yard unaware of the existence of an old well. There wasn't this "lynch mob" deal going on the way there is now, no one slamming the mother for letting an "unfit" aunt watch the child, no one slamming the aunt for letting an 18 month old play in the yard without 24/7 supervision, no one slamming the aunt for not being aware of the abandoned mineshaft. There was compassion, period.
I submit that the people of the 1980s got it right, the people of now have got it wrong. Times change all right, sometimes for the worse.
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