This would be an interesting debate.
Easy now. While I’ll go very solidly with: a human life is not precious to any but a small circle of friends, I will also be in the vanguard demanding respect for all life–plant-y or animal-y. The two ideas are not mutually exclusive. What dooms us, what will be the root of our destruction, is the lack of respect we show for one another, and for the life forms we share this rock with.
In Ohio, public pools are required to have a 4 foot high fence that is not easily scaled and cannot be crawled under. I would think that a zoo would be able to at least meet those requirements.
There is no “objectively” about it. Only humans can make moral judgments about the relative value of a human life versus that of any animal, even an endangered one. And that’s a subjective judgment.
I’m a very strong conservationist and have worked with many very severely threatened species. It would be an excruciating choice maybe if it were a single human life versus the very last pair of a species.
But in this case it would not be a terribly hard choice. The death of a single captive male gorilla isn’t going to make it significantly more likely that the species will go extinct. Hundreds of gorillas are slaughtered every year in the wild so poachers can make a few bucks selling their meat. While regrettable, killing an animal to protect the life of a child was justifiable.
Sure, if “walling off acres with plexiglass” was required.
I don’t think adding (say) an extra foot to the fence around the gorilla moat, and making it impossible to crawl through, is going to render the zoo obsolete, though.
As others have pointed out, they can do stuff like that for pools.
Again - I’m not seeing how (say) adding a foot to the barrier fence around the gorilla moat and making it crawl-through-proof will fundamentally change the zoo going experience.
Good point - here in Toronto, the city has a by-law (chapter 447) requiring owners of private as well as public pools to install a 4 foot fence that can’t be climbed or crawled through, specifically to avoid children wandering in unsupervised.
It is a losing argument that a zoo cannot, for reasons of cost, meet that standard, when every private individual with a backyard pool is expected to.
Well, I’m certainly not going to argue against a fence, but I bet a fence has no real effect on stupid Darwin Award candidates taking themselves out of the gene pool. This was a once in 38 years event, out of who knows how many millions of visitors, and if do gooders are really that concerned, they should cough up some serious dough. Bet they don’t.
So whaddya think - will there be a lawsuit? Should there be? What should be the result?
One of the voices of reason in this thread. I agree with Colibri 100%.
I don’t. There’s like, 100,000 of them maybe and they’re endangered. There’s 7,500,000,000 humans. A human isn’t worth the price of a barrel of oil, depending on how you work that out. All relative.
Someone breaks into your house? Kill them.
Love someone? Worth more than the universe.
Whatever.
If you actually READ my post, I made it clear that wonder-mom was there without wonder-dad. That doesn’t mean that wonder-dad shouldn’t be subjected to gorilla justice.
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAA! HAHAHAHAHAAHHAAHA!
Feel free to throw her a few bucks for her trauma. But if you are telling me that
- wonder-mom was so busy watching the kids of other parents that she couldn’t be bothered to watch her own, and
- since you read that on the internet it must be true,
Then you clearly know more than anyone about what happened.
So, unless you were actually there and have all this recorded on your cell phone, spare me the indignation of what YOU know vs.what anyone else knows based on what they read on the web.
<YAWN> Feel free to pay for her security system and her trauma.
Nothing is idiot proof. If this is the first incident in 38 years, I would assume (without ever being at the Cincinnati Zoo) that a child who is attended to with a minimal amount of supervision at the zoo would not have found their way into the gorilla enclosure.
But alas, I am sure someone will take the case. I hope she wins and the Cincinnati Zoo closes forever. That would be the perfect ending for you, where the world must be bubble-wrapped to protect those who may somehow get hurt. It doesn’t matter to you that it has been 38 years without incident. One kid (let’s call him Houdini) figures a way to get by a fence and into the water, and no parent is held responsible for fucking up.
That doesn’t mean I think she wanted the kid to fall into the gorilla enclosure. But she DID fuck up.
Are you a parent?
Make mistakes? Of course. But you seem to want to believe that supermom was in no way at fault. The kid is 4. He needs to be supervised.
Tell me… If supermom was at a crosswalk, and was paying the same amount of attention to her little spawn while traffic was whizzing by (not holding his hand, not looking right at him), and he bolted into traffic, and YOU happened to be driving your car through that intersection at that exact moment and you squashed the kid, would YOU take all the blame? Would you wear that mantle yourself, or would you expect supermom to have known where her kid was, and shoulder at least SOME of the responsibility? Or would you be ok with her suing you, because she was “watching other kids.” No need to worry about your personal mental anguish for running down and killing her kid. She wants to sue you, too. Because it isn’t HER fault. it must be yours.
What if supermom took the kid to a local park that has a public lake. The kid ends up in the drink and drowns, because according to HER story she was paying attention to a bunch of OTHER kids… Can she sue the park for her lack of parenting? (I know the answer for you… But the real question is should she?)
You were outside 20 minutes ago and now you are watching TV. Wow, that is fascinating.
Your last sentence tells me that either
- you are not a parent or
- you exhibit the same behavior that supermom does, and can’t believe how people are calling her “parenting” skills into question.
Show me where I used the word “retarded”, and “many times”. You started foaming at my post and couldn’t wait to pull it apart line by line, and yet you misquote continuously to make-beileve you’ve supported your “point”
you actually have no idea how hypocritical your entire post is, do you?
I have not read one post yet that said “I was there and saw the whole thing.” I assume we are all going by what we’ve read/seen posted on-line.
I include myself in that group.
Did I guess she was on her phone? Yes. Do I know that for sure that she was? Of course not… I wasn’t there. However, I am not a hermit. I see how people “watch” their kids in social settings, like museums, parks etc. (I have small child, so I am surrounded by these people).
The next time you are out around a bunch of parents and children under 6, tell me how many parents
- have their phones out
- are using their phones to surf the web, NOT taking pictures of their kids
- lose track of their kids because they are too engrossed in their phone.
It’s a problem. Open your eyes.
But I am sure you are right. She was not on her phone, talking to someone, jamming food in her mouth, or anything like that. She was standing at the gorilla exhibit with her hawk-like attention laser-focused on not only HER child (or children… I have no idea if any of her other 3 kids were there, but I am sure you know and will tell us), but she was in charge of her neighborhood’s children too! And OOPS! She just lost track of that little bugger for a second or two!
On top of the “jackasses” personal insult, you wish harm to posters’ children? Way over the line, even if this thread WERE in the Pit—and it isn’t.
And let me just remind everyone else here that we are not in the Pit, and that this is a discussion that can be heated but needs to stay civil. No, snark and sarcasm aren’t being outlawed. But it needs to be toned down a notch or two in this thread.
Yeah, but one problem is that I believe fences around pools are aimed at preventing somewhat different situations. I’m sure I’ll mangle any legal terms/concepts, but pools are generally considered attractive nuisances. The fences are to keep people (kids?) from going into the pool when the pool is unattended. As you say - protecting unsupervised children.
A little different here, where the primary goal of the fence - and moat! - is to maintain separation between the people and the animals. Here, the child was (ostensibly at least) supervised.
Another problem is the thinking, if 4 feet is better than 3, then why not 5’ - or 10? Yeah, if the fence did not get close enough to the ground, it wouldn’t matter how tall it is. But every time you think you made something idiot proof, along comes a better idiot!
I’m interested BTW - what makes a 4’ fence not climbable? Other than electricity or barbed wire?
So you’re saying I spend more time letting toddlers get mauled than saving endangered animals?
Hm. That is a toughy. Decisions, decisions…
It is not a gorilla but an Orangutan but you can get the idea
of their strength
[quote=“ssgenius, post:278, topic:756046”]
It is not a gorilla but an Orangutan but you can get the idea
of their strength
Lol. No.
I would say that a pool is a reasonable analogy. Zoos are designed as attractions for small children (among others). The design of a zoo - that it requires people viewing the exhibits to move about, often in crowds - practically guarantees that a certain number will slip away from parental custody. That’s why all the zoos I’ve been in had something like a “lost child pavilion” and lost-child procedures - because this is a regularly-occurring, foreseeable situation.
With very young children, animals are an “attractive nuisance” because they love the animals (often why they are there) but do not (yet) possess the knowledge that they are potentially dangerous. So it is also foreseeable that a certain number of very young children will want, if not prevented, to get up close and personal with the animals they are there to see (so will adults, but they are legally supposed to know better).
Given that it is (a) an attraction designed in the expectation that families with children will visit, (b) foreseeable that a certain number of children will slip away from parental supervision, and (c) foreseeable that very young children may, in some cases, be attracted to the animals, it therefore follows that zoos ought to employ the same technology readily available to keep young kids away from another hazard - namely, a fence not climbable by young children.
It’s a good question. Just for kicks I looked it up.
It isn’t the height alone that makes it “unclimbable”, but the design. The fence must avoid what is known as “the ladder effect” - that is, design elements that would enable a child to obtain hand and footholds.
The city bylaw is in a pdf, but the relevant definition is as follows:
Why 1.2 meters and not more - or less? I don’t know. However, it seems to be close to a standard - around 4’ or so. I just assume something around that height has proven high enough to keep out young children reliably; anyone capable of climbing that without hand or footholds is, by definition, big enough not to be young enough.