20 thoughts on “Guns, Gorillas, And Moon Missions”

  1. My thought is that by shooting the gorilla they’ve sent a message to all four-year olds that they can jump in an enclosure with a wild animal and if they get in trouble, some adult will save them by shooting the animal. This will lead to more four-year olds jumping into enclosures and more dead zoo animals.

    What they should have done is shoot the kid to send the message that any children who jump into an enclosure will be shot – so don’t jump in!

    The old assumption that the zoo’s visitors were the smart and competent animals is no longer operative.

  2. Make the world safe for idiots and we’ll have more idiots. Why is making new rules the default first choice? Because people don’t think, they react.

    We don’t need new laws for driverless cars, for example; first because all cars will have someone responsible for them being on the road (no new laws required for that.) Second, because no law will address every circumstance if focused too specifically.

  3. While I agree the safety thing is often over done, I don’t agree with the blame falling on the mother for the gorilla’s death, firstly it can be really hard to keep control of several kids at zoo’s and fairs, if there’s one more child than adult having control over all of the kids all the time isn’t going to happen – assuming they’re normal inquisitive kids, I’ve had to track down kids several times on such trips.

    What I don’t get is what’s so hard about child proof fences.

    1. I wouldn’t blame the parents in a criminal sense, maybe civilly. But stuff happens. When stuff happens, we don’t always send an individual the bill. I haven’t seen anything saying the parents directed the kid to bypass the barrier, being rude/disruptive, or were wasted.

      The cost would be a hefty one though and no one goes to the zoo knowing there is a possibility they could have to spend a couple hundred grand, or whatever an animal costs. A lot less people might go to zoos. However, knowing a zoo will protect your kid from a giant gorilla is comforting.

    3. Zoos are a stupid idea to begin with, a sentiment that H. L. Mencken inculcated in me by his writing on the subject.

      Quoting Mencken, “But zoos are educational! Indeed they are, and the children visiting the zoo will learn that giraffes are morose creatures that depend on (Southern European immigrant workers) to feed them hay.”

      The past few years, however, I have been in a zoo exhibit inasmuch as the model train club I participate in was invited to set up a train layout in the visitor center as a special attraction. The clientele of both public model train exhibits and zoos consists largely of pre-school age children.

      There are teens who express an interest in model trains, but as a teen, is the zoo a place you take a date? I guess all the little kids running around are the end goal about what dating is supposed to be about, but it doesn’t work to be that direct about life objectives that early in the process.

      So I guess zoos are primarily about engaging, occupying, entertaining, and yes, educating pre-school age kids, so I guess I am reluctant to take that outlet away from the parents.

      1. While I recognize the ethical issues, zoos are the only way most people can see exotic animals in person. I love going to the zoo, or at least did when I was younger, and less jaded. To oppose them is very elitist, denying the uberlumpen the opportunity to see what the elites do on safari.

        1. OK Rand, so I am elitist by being skeptical about whether the great apes should be kept in zoos whereas you have coined the word “uberlumpen” to describe the people lacking the means to travel to distant foreign places, and you are not what I am?

          “Uber” means “above” or “superior”; “lumpen” means rag, and I am in a position to know because Mom, Grandma, and Grandpa were native speakers of a south-Slavic dialect of German and they spoke that word all the time. Karl Marx described the “lumpen proletariat” that I take to mean “underclass” in the vocabulary of Paul Fussel and Charles Murray.

          But what is an “uberlumpen”? Is it an “over rag”, which would describe a woman’s head scarf, not only a garment of many Muslim women but also worn by married Christian women in the Near East? Or when you contact an Internet-dispatched ride service, is it the worn out car that shows up?

      1. Depends on who holds the leash. The autocratic socialists think that only they are qualified, and that the leash should be mandatory.

        1. Remember, that to the autocratic socialists (or, as I like to call them, “State-f*ckers”) the State is Daddy, and Daddy has the leash. That’s why periodically the “liberal” party line is that those of us in the pro-freedom camp are “eternal rebellious adolescents.” If we were responsible adults, presumably, we’d surrender our liberty to Daddy State and let him call the shots–lengthening and shortening the leash as he sees fit. (Of course, doing so would make us serfs eternal children, but to the statist eternal children–especially when docile–are preferred to eternal adolescents. You know, adolescents like Tom Paine, Jefferson, etc.)

  5. I think they should at least look into why the child preferred a gorilla to his birth parents.

  6. If “Guns, Gorillas, And Moon Missions” were a novel I’d be reading the hell out of it right now.

  7. This is yet another abdication of parental responsibility. We’re now told (mostly by “conservatives”!) that it’s wrong to hold parents responsible for the fact that their child ran off, climbed over two barriers, and plunged 15 feet onto a concrete surface. It’s too difficult for a parent to supervise his child. Some institution (in this case, the zoo) has to be held responsible for making sure that doesn’t happen.

    Even when there’s no animal involved, a 15-foot fall onto concrete can be crippling, even fatal, for a four-year-old. The world is full of dangerous places where a child could fall. Instead of a gorilla habitat, what if it had been a road overpass, a steep cliff at the nature preserve, or an open window in the family home? Who should be held responsible for making sure the child doesn’t fall there? Since it’s just too difficult for parents to supervise their children?

    I used to work with gorillas at the Dallas Zoo, but I rarely visit zoos anymore. This is one reason why. It scares me to death every time I go to a zoo and see parents holding their children out over the safety railing so they can “get a better look” at the bear pit. For which the zoo would no doubt be held responsible if the child fell.

    Zoo visitors (mostly *not* children) try to enter animal enclosures on a frequent basis. One time I caught a couple of college-age kids who had scaled the 10-ft wall surrounding the baboon habitat. They weren’t trying to get in, just wanted to “get a photo” from above instead of looking through the windows. They were completely unaware of the fact that there’s hot wire up there to keep the animals from escaping and would likely have fallen inside if they’d touched it.

    At some point, people need to learn common sense and take responsibility for their own safety — and, yes, the safety of their children. It’s not really rocket science.

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