OHIO, United States (Reuters) — A child was rescued from the grip of a gorilla after falling into the animal’s enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo Saturday (May 28).
“Thank goodness he was not badly hurt going in, because he was walking in there and splashing around,” said zoo director Thane Maynard.
“But Harambe, our 17 year old Gorilla, male, who was a great big animal, 400 pounds, went down and got him and carried him up into the moat, was moving him around. And it seemed very much by our professional team, our dangerous animal response team, to be a life threatening situation.”
The 3-year-old boy was taken to the hospital with serious injuries, after Harambe was shot and killed by the zoo’s dangerous animal response team about 10 minutes after the boy first made it into the enclosure.
Maynard defended the decision not to tranquilize the gorilla, because, he said, when the animal is agitated, the tranquilizer may not take effect immediately.
“The decision was not made lightly. Lowland gorillas are very endangered animals. There aren’t many in captivity,” said Maynard. “But the team did a good job, and they made a tough choice and they made the right choice. Because, they saved that little boy’s life. It could have been very bad.”
Maynard said the child was not under attack by the gorilla, but that he was “at risk”.
“All sorts of things could happen in a situation like that,” said Maynard.
The zoo is scheduled to reopen on Sunday.
