General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: PARENTS are responsible for the safety of their children. [View all]nolabear
(41,986 posts)I'm so sorry about what happened to all of the individuals involved in this tragedy. But it happened because it happened. A perfect storm of active, unknowing child, a mother who may well have been wonderfully attentive but lost track for that one moment when he made the decision to do something almost unimaginable, and a beautiful but very dangerous creature whose life was sacrificed in order to save the victim of an awful accident.
I was as attentive a parent as one can possibly be without destroying my two sons by not letting them live full lives. I bit my lips and let them take reasonable chances and watched them in ways they'll never know about. And man...we had EMTs have to cut one's head out of a bannister. One toppled off a chair, just sitting there, and broke an arm. One locked down a JC Penny when he thought it would be fun to hide from me in the clothes rack. One tripped on the gas hose at a filling station and got sprayed in the face with gasoline (EMTs again). One stuck a raisin up his nose and had to have it removed by a doctor. One almost got killed by a falling store shelf full of paint (he was RIGHT behind me when it broke loose from the wall). One gave himself a shiner when he decided to show off his new shoes and charged into a display. We made it through with much care and some luck.
I also worked with wildlife at one time. All the care in the world can't cover every possibility. The enclosure was designed to be the best they could create for the gorillas, while providing reasonable protection for the public. Believe me, no enclosure is perfect when a determined human wants to breach it unless it's also so artificial as to be bad for the creatures it serves. I'm sure they'll look long and hard into what they might have done differently but everything is imperfect.
Things happen. Bad things happen. They will happen to you and you will wonder how they did. And if you're very lucky you won't have to bear what this mother and this zoo are having to bear. They'll be second guessing themselves about what they could have done forever without anyone's disdain.