This is all true, and I don’t blame the kid, per se. However, kids still do stupid things even if they HAVE been taught to know better (take it from a former stupid kid). Coddling the kid ain’t going to teach him anything; he needs to, unfortunate though it may be, suffer some real-world consequences for his actions. Kids don’t learn that fire burns by being told that it’s hot, they learn it by getting their fingers blistered. If the worst thing that ever happens to him in his life is that he has to get a bunch of painful shots because a bear nipped him, he’ll be doing better than most of us.
Well, *that’ll * teach those goddam child-luring bears!
My vote’s for punishing the parents, too. Hopefully, there’s still more to this story that is unreported at this time.
There’s nothing in the article that says what the parents were doing when the kid climbed the fence. Part of me hopes that they were encouraging him or her to get close to the bears because it would be so “cute.” Then it would be easy to say, “What absolute idiots!” and hope their kid gets taken away from them or, at least, they get heavily fined for ignoring the rules, endangering their child and causing the bears to be killed.
Part of me hopes the parents were watching some other critters and the kid, as they are wont to do at that age, wandered away. Of course, the parents should have been more vigilent but I would find it a little more easy to forgive them if that were the case.
However, it’s hard for me to imagine a 4-year-old climbing a 4-foot-high fence unassisted or, at least unnoticed, so I’m leaning toward the first scenario.
Poor, poor bears. 
It seems to me that it’s the parent’s responsibility to keep the child safe, given the low age of the child. To my knowledge, letting a 4 year-old wander around unattended is negligence, and it wouldn’t even matter whether bears were involved or not. If the parents weren’t supervising their child, then he could just as easily have fallen from the top of the fence and broken a bone or two.
My pitting of the child is, in retrospect, a bit of a stretch, given the child’s age. Kids should have clear concepts about what they ought to and ought not to do, absent input from an adult, and as other posters have noted, it falls back on the parent. Littlecats knows that if she has doubt, she’s to ask me first, and I’ve done my damndest to teach her when and when not to reach that juncture. While I wouldn’t have climbed a fence at a zoo to get closer to bears, and my daughter wouldn’t have, either, some kids will, because their parents are incapable of understanding what it means to be a parent.
Give the guilty kids and parents both injections of tasty marinade, and feed them to the bears. 
Quoth the raven, “Smorgasbord.”
Praetor, when I said that it was a little more forgivable, I meant a smidge. I doubt there is a parent alive who hasn’t had an “I just took my eyes off of him for a moment” experience that scared the heck out of them. Usually the kid is lucky to not have been harmed and most of them don’t wind up getting maimed by a wild animal. The parents aren’t bad people in general and do try their best to keep their little ones safe. That’s why I wouldn’t be quite so hard on them.
However, stories abound of parents at Yellowstone and other such parks who will smear ice cream on the face of their toddler because they want to catch on film a bear cub licking it off. Just ask any ranger or parks personnel about such stunts. These parents are idiots and should have their kids taken away from them. They should be put in stockades and be publicly scorned for their stupidity. If the parents in the OP’s post fall into this category, they would get no sympathy from me.
Please tell me these people were made to leave the park right away, and were banned from ever coming back? :eek:
I say the kid should become a ward of the state. A four year old can hop a four foot fence unassisted. They just can’t do it quickly or without making a lot of noise. Either the parents knew, or they should have known. IMO Sending your child into a potentially lethal situation just so you can get a cute picture is negligence, reckless endangerment and a bunch of other things that amount to relinquishing any legal claim to the kid. Ignoring your kid while they go to pet the bears is just negligence, and may or may not amount to relinquishing custody.
Re Maymont
I visited the website expecting some ‘Come and let us exploit and sanitize nature for your convenience and viewing pleasure’. It seems to be rather the opposite. All of the resident animals have some condition that prevents their ever being released. It sounds like a serious attempt to preserve nature and to teach people to value it. I’m guessing the folks at Maymont spent a few hours in conference before somebody talked them out of killing the kid and testing him for rabies.
I was at our local zoo this week, and I saw a young boy lolling over the two fences that kept us from the warthogs - he had just moved his feet when a belligerent male charged at him. Him mom stood behind him and watched him drape himself over the two fences. Another time at the zoo, I reprimanded a child who was trying to grab a double armful of peacock (they stroll the grounds freely) while his mother was nowhere in sight. People are just freakin’ stupid, and two bears dead is a damn sight bigger tragedy than one scratched four year old getting a series of rabies shots.
Oh, I forgot to mention the signs posted everywhere saying “Do not climb on barriers.” :rolleyes:
The first picture in this slideshow shows the wooden fence, the chainlink fence, a bear, and a boy. A kid could easily climb through that wooden fence. I’m surprised it hadn’t happened before.
Was one of the bears killed that Snuggles bear?
I’d be cool with that.
Snuggles is one of the undead.
Hell Yeah. The bear should get the 4 year old for dessert!
Animals in a zoo are protected FROM people just as much as people are protected FROM animals. Zoo’s are increasingly taking on the role as the last bastion. A place where protected species are being bred and endemic species are being showcased and protected.
Zoos are about animals. Should a lion break through an enclosure and eat a child. Kill the lion.
If a child breaks through an enclosure and a lion eats it?
“Well done lion! Now put down that thigh bone and wait for the signal next time!”
Seeing the set-up there, that zoo has some serious work to do to look after their animals. That is a totally deficient enclosure. Now I’m mad at the zoo that didn’t take better steps to protect their animals from the stupidity of humans, the one thing you can rely on in these situations.
I’ve changed my mind - I no longer want to be cremated.
Regards,
Shodan
Spoken like someone who has never been there. You are being unfair. They have one incident in their history and you say they aren’t doing a good job of it"? Maymont is a wonderful place. I went there frequently as a kid, my first place on my own within walking distance and I frequently take my kids there today. It is free to get in and there are farm animals to feed, wild animals of all kinds to see, and there is a new nature center that is fantastic. There is a victorian mansion, Japanese and Italian gardens, waterfalls, wide open spaces for playing ball or frisbee…and it is all for free. It is very similar to Central Park in NY,NY.
Maymont is great. They take care of many animals that would otherwise be killed or die in the wild. They provide a safe place for people to see all kinds of animals.
I have been there to see the bears MANY MANY times and there has never been a time when I felt unsafe. I am completely baffled as to how the kid accessed the bears. The main viewing area has a wall with what I assume is safety glass separating you from the bears. The rest of the way around the exhibit there is a wall ( I am guessing the height) four feet tall with windows built in where you can see through. You are actually slightly higher than the bears and there is a dry moat with shear walls the bears cannot climb.
To access the bears a four year old would need help from a complcit adult. And then, I cannot imagine how it would happen. But I guess it did.
All of my pariase for Maymont, I am pissed that they killed the bears! What a knne jerk reaction!
I’m starting to think that Maymont Park is some sort of cult. I’ve now had two of its supporters tear me a new one because of a perceived slight.
First, let me point out I’m hardly the only one who has wondered about the park’s ability to house its bears:
… and I’m the one who attracts the cult’s ire? Go figure.
Oh, and newcrasher:
Try reading all the fucking thread before you go off on your holier-than-thou fucking rant. Mmkay?
That all having been said, the primary fault indeed seems to rest with the parents and even whatever bystanders were in the area. I mean, how the hell did a four year old scale the four-foot fence and run up to the chain link fence without anyone noticing it until it was too late?
Hey, I explained it nicely! (And yeah, I guess you could consider there to be a ‘cult of Maymont’ - my mom said the entire city of Richmond is pretty much pissed as hell about this right now.)
There’s now talk that the kid never even got TOUCHED by a bear - that he scraped his hand climbing over the fence.
As far as whether or not the habitats are safe, or sufficient…well, my guess is that Maymont is going to have to rethink them. Oddly enough, they’ve been sufficient in the 50 years that the park has had the wildlife section, and the bear habitats have been fine for the 25 years that they’ve HAD a bear habitat. But it now seems that the stupidity of ONE family can get the rest of it totally revamped.
I hope not. I’ve never been to another wildlife park like Maymont - the animals are sharing their home with us, we are visiting THEIR home. They’re not guests of the city. And it would be a shame to lose that.
E.