So about this Cincinnati Zoo gorilla they killed..

[HexMachina]

49 minutes ago, Crazy Cat Lady in Training said:

Oh, she will. It's only a matter of time. They'll wait a decent amount of time to let the furor subside, though. The Derkosh family waited 6 months before filing a lawsuit against Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium. 

Call me crazy but i'd rather wait for actual news before condeming these parents to the gallows, rather than "I'm sure they will"

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

41 minutes ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

One of the first things that male gorillas do when they become the new Alpha of a harem is go around and squish all of the babies fathered by other males. There's no way of knowing what an animal like this is going to do. The zoo did the right thing in stopping the child from getting hurt, if not in making a cage that a small child can't get into.

This was a very sad thing that happened. But at the same time I think the amount of attention that it's getting is pretty absurd. ISIS killed 25 people with nitric acid last week, and a third of the Great Barrier Reef ecosystem is dying out over pollution. There are more pressing issues to focus on than one animal dying in what was really a freak occurrence.

I thought infanticide was a Chimpanzee behavior not a Gorilla behavior.

[TrueMetis]

2 hours ago, Crazy Cat Lady in Training said:

Failed in design? That exhibit had been open for 38 years without incident. 38 years. So no, the problem isn't the design or the zoo's fault.

Why does it matter how long it went without an incident? When it takes years for a car or plane to fuck up do to a design failure we don't say "the problem isn't the design or the manufacturer's fault." That it took 38 years for something to happen in no way proves that the design for the fences was okay.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

4 minutes ago, TrueMetis said:

Why does it matter how long it went without an incident? When it takes years for a car or plane to fuck up do to a design failure we don't say "the problem isn't the design or the manufacturer's fault." That it took 38 years for something to happen in no way proves that the design for the fences was okay.

Well, a design worked that worked without an incident for over 38 years really cannot be that faulty. If you feel like it, you can do a bit of number crunching. 38 years with 1.2 mil annual visitors. You get a pretty high number of visitors who managed not to get themselves or their children into the moat. And like I said in an earlier post, a thing is only for so long foolproof, as no fool proves you otherwise. 

[JGP]

Oh, it can. It would be hard to prove a 4 year old could be such a fool, when being foolish is something that belies having little knowledge or life experience to so blithely ignore. A 4 year old got in = bad design. You can't argue with that. I mean, you can, but it would be foolish.

The zoo is taking it in the ass publicly [pardon the expression] and are under criminal investigation. The mother, though not under investigation, is the subject of a petition to see her held liable with over 300,000 signatures and had to delete her Facebook account cause, people are awesome. This very thread is full of, at turns, both thoughtful and idiotic statements [and sentiments].

The real zoo is out here, it ain't in there. Fucking unbelievable hahaha...  

 

edited to qualify diction

[HexMachina]

6 minutes ago, JEORDHl said:

Oh, it can. It would be hard to prove a 4 year old could be such a fool, when being foolish is something that belies having little knowledge or life experience to so blithely ignore. A 4 year old got in = bad design. You can't argue with argue that. I mean, you can, but it would be foolish.

The zoo is taking it in the ass publicly [pardon the expression] and are under criminal investigation. The mother, though not under investigation, is the subject of a petition to see her held liable with over 300,000 signatures and had to delete her Facebook account cause, people are awesome. This very thread is full of, at turns, both thoughtful and idiotic statements [and sentiments].

The real zoo is out here, it ain't in there. Fucking unbelievable hahaha...  

 

edited to qualify diction

"...occupiers should never underestimate the power of children to harm themselves through mischief."

Quoted from a case that is somewhat different but still applicable IMO. Never underestimate a child's ability to find some way to cause mischief.

[JGP]

Having two little girls, I'd echo that sentiment. 

 

Kind of related:

I was raised in northern British Columbia, Canada. We had an acreage, but no fences, so our property line wasn't interrupted. Wide open forest, seamlessly merging into Crown or our neighbors land. We had deer, moose and bear wandering through our property or raiding my mom's garden, and they were usually chased off by our St Bernard/Black Lab cross. Big, intimidating dog.

Should my parents have never let me outside?

I'm six years old or so, when one morning I woke up around dawn. Wrote a hardly legible note to my sleeping parents citing that I'd decided to go rabbit hunting.

Should my parents have locked my door?

I have no idea when they woke up, or how long they'd worried. I do recall hearing my father pissed off [now I realize it was his way of worrying] and yelling my name. I eventually made my way home, silly little homemade spear in hands that were otherwise empty. Never did get a rabbit. Saw lots though.

A deer probably would've run, a moose might've as well but also could've really hurt 6 year old me. I can't recall even worrying about bear, but it's a worry in the wild, there. Wildlife aside, I could've gotten very lost. 

Everything turned out alright, I got a hell of a talking to from my dad and a really awesome hug from my mom, but at the time [iirc] I was also a little confused about what the big deal was.

Clearly, I should've realized that my parents were negligent assholes and that my home was a cage I should've never been able to escape.

[MercenaryChef]

I love how this event has brought thousands of gorilla behavior and parenting experts out of the woodwork and onto the Internet.  

 

 

[Ormond]

I do think that some people on this thread have an inflated view of what the average four year old should be able to understand. 

I also agree that simply because this had never happened before in 38 years does not mean that the zoo was in no way at fault. There is the matter of maintenance, after all. Any man-made structure is going to require a lot of maintenance over 38 years, and it is certainly possible that it actually was not as safe in 2016 as when it was built in 1978. Maybe the zoo did do wonderful maintenance on that exhibit, but it's an issue that has to be investigated before one absolves their "design" of all responsibility. 

I would also agree that being overly condemnatory of either the zoo or the parents may be unwarranted. There are indeed rare flukey events that happen that could not reasonably have been anticipated. After something happens, the hindsight bias always makes it seem as if people "should" have been able to anticipate these events more than they actually were able to. And of course that's one reason why this incident is getting so much news coverage -- people expect ISIS to do horrible things. We don't expect zoo gorillas to be shot when children fall into their enclosures, precisely because it is so very rare. That's what makes it news. 

[all swedes are racist]

6 hours ago, Notone said:

Well, a design worked that worked without an incident for over 38 years really cannot be that faulty. If you feel like it, you can do a bit of number crunching. 38 years with 1.2 mil annual visitors. You get a pretty high number of visitors who managed not to get themselves or their children into the moat. And like I said in an earlier post, a thing is only for so long foolproof, as no fool proves you otherwise. 

Pretty specious. Willing to assume some vast majority of those millions of visitors never actively tried to gain access to the enclosure. 

Just because I have a locking screen door and haven't had a break-in doesn't mean my locking screen door if effective at resisting break-ins

[JGP]

I saw a documentary that showed that behavior with lions. Sad and disturbing, especially the reaction of the conquered Pride's lionesses. Just... lost.

---

I've been trying to find the article I read earlier that stated it was the zoo under investigation and not the parents. Found one that was blanked out, maybe that was it, but as it turns out I was wrong to state such. The police are investigating the parents and circumstances surrounding the incident, not the zoo. 

A further article I read noted the oddity of the mother getting all this flack via social media, yet the father was there too and he got none [personally, though surely has by osmosis] 

 

[DireWolfSpirit]

This is kinda dry reading, but since it was mentioned I'll post a link for it. It's a study on the impact of Male infanticide on the social structure of Mountain Gorillas.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3819382/

[HexMachina]

3 hours ago, JEORDHl said:

I saw a documentary that showed that behavior with lions. Sad and disturbing, especially the reaction of the conquered Pride's lionesses. Just... lost.

---

I've been trying to find the article I read earlier that stated it was the zoo under investigation and not the parents. Found one that was blanked out, maybe that was it, but as it turns out I was wrong to state such. The police are investigating the parents and circumstances surrounding the incident, not the zoo. 

A further article I read noted the oddity of the mother getting all this flack via social media, yet the father was there too and he got none [personally, though surely has by osmosis]  

 

I noticed this too. In this very thread there has been focus from a few posters on the negligence of the mother. I guess father's just don't share that parental responsibility for some. Must be the lack of ovaries

[Theda Baratheon]

Hmmmm i am not fond of the sexist, derogatory comments ive seen from people on other websites concerning the mother and no word of the father...

[DanteGabriel]

My son is 20 months old and I am pretty sure he is going to be a ninja. He was crawling up stairs at six months, before he could walk. He climbs anything he can get one foot or knee on and he has a talent for finding gaps or holes to exploit. He is like a velociraptor that way.

We have walled off most of the living room with gates to make a large play space for him and he constantly pushes toys or stools up to the walls to try and get over. Once my wife put him in one of those circular baby stands that keeps his feet off the ground and surrounds him with toys at waist level, designed to keep him in one spot with no escape, just so she could go to the bathroom. When she came out a few minutes later, he'd pulled himself out of the circle and climbed two flights of stairs all the way to our (thankfully finished and carpeted) attic.

I'd like to think that I'd be able to keep my son out of trouble if we went to a zoo together, but I also know that I'm not perfect.

All of this is a long-winded way of saying that small kids are chaos generators with a keen eye for exploiting gaps in coverage. Sometimes they outwit you and you get terrified and you luck out that nothing terrible happened. People assuming the parents are delinquent assholes are skipping a few logical steps in their rush to righteously assign blame. It's even sadder to me when other parents do this.

[Gears of the Beast]

20 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I thought infanticide was a Chimpanzee behavior not a Gorilla behavior.

Infanticide is practiced by primates in general (including us) and has been observed in wild populations of most primates that I'm aware of (including gorillas). 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

17 hours ago, Ormond said:

I do think that some people on this thread have an inflated view of what the average four year old should be able to understand. 

I also agree that simply because this had never happened before in 38 years does not mean that the zoo was in no way at fault. There is the matter of maintenance, after all. Any man-made structure is going to require a lot of maintenance over 38 years, and it is certainly possible that it actually was not as safe in 2016 as when it was built in 1978. Maybe the zoo did do wonderful maintenance on that exhibit, but it's an issue that has to be investigated before one absolves their "design" of all responsibility. 

I would also agree that being overly condemnatory of either the zoo or the parents may be unwarranted. There are indeed rare flukey events that happen that could not reasonably have been anticipated. After something happens, the hindsight bias always makes it seem as if people "should" have been able to anticipate these events more than they actually were able to. And of course that's one reason why this incident is getting so much news coverage -- people expect ISIS to do horrible things. We don't expect zoo gorillas to be shot when children fall into their enclosures, precisely because it is so very rare. That's what makes it news. 

Yes. But the zoos get inspected regularly. And I read somewhere the last inspection of the gorilla habitat was around 2 months ago, and it passed. Of course you can make an argument, that maybe the industry standards are not high enough. But then it will probably be down to a discussion, whether it is better to exhibit the animals in a more "natural enviroment" or whether going back to iron bars and glass cages is the future.

My politically incorrect response is somewhat along the lines, that I find it somewhat annoying to punish everybody else, because of one person out of tens of millions of visitors screws up. And that still is a rather impressive safety record.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

14 hours ago, R'hllors Red Lobster said:

Pretty specious. Willing to assume some vast majority of those millions of visitors never actively tried to gain access to the enclosure. 

Just because I have a locking screen door and haven't had a break-in doesn't mean my locking screen door if effective at resisting break-ins

So the zoo's at fault for people actively trying to gain access to the enclosure? Check my politically incorrect response above. Granted it was a child involved, that cannot fully appreciate the consequences of his actions, but then again the parents should really ask themselves whether taking their 4 y.o. to the zoo was such a brilliant, if they can't make sure he does not endanger himself there. And apparently the vast majority of other parents were/are able to do that.

[kairparavel]

8 hours ago, Theda Baratheon said:

Hmmmm i am not fond of the sexist, derogatory comments ive seen from people on other websites concerning the mother and no word of the father...

Oh don't worry. Daily Mail in all their glory has that covered.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3617016/EXCLUSIVE-PICTURES-parents-four-son-fell-zoo-enclosure-sparking-controversial-killing-Harambe-gorilla-emerges-father-lengthy-criminal-history.html?ito=social-twitter_DailyMailUS

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

21 hours ago, MercifulChief said:

I love how this event has brought thousands of gorilla behavior and parenting experts out of the woodwork and onto the Internet.  

 

 

Clearing