| Was the
shooting of Harambe the right decision? A personal editorial... |
 There
has been a flurry of controversy over the decision of the Cincinnati
Zoo to shoot Harambe when a three-year old child fell into the gorilla
exhibit.
Let's
say at the outset that there's much information
about this incident that remains to be gathered and that many people
have been very quick in forming their own personal opinions. And any
way you look at this event, it was a tragedy as Harambe, who suffered
the most was also surely the one least responsible for the situation.
The
comments below are being made personally by C. E. Steuart Dewar and are
not intended to represent an official position of the Dewar Wildlife
Trust on this incident...
This is what we know so far:
The child apparently
was out of sight of its parents for long enough for him to duck under a
barrier and then end up falling into the gorilla habitat below. It's
easy to condemn the parents for not paying more attention, but I really
doubt there's any parent out there who can honestly say that their own
child never left their sight for more than a few seconds in a public
area like a zoo or shopping center. And it's easy to condemn the zoo
for an exhibit where this incident was possible, but the exhibit
barriers had not only been in place for several decades without
incident, they also
met all the requirements of the AZA and USDA and were not that
different
from the exhibits at other zoos.
It's
important that everyone
acknowledge that the zoo was dealing with probabilities and not
certainties. There was no certainty that the gorilla would not harm the
child and no certainty that it would harm the child. There was no
certainty that shooting the gorilla would be safer than trying to
anesthetize the gorilla and no certainty that the child would not be
injured if the gorilla were shot. And we can only make guesses as to
what those
probabilities are.
My own personal opinion is that the
probability that the gorilla would cause a life-threatening injury or
death to the child was somewhere around 10%. I only say this because 1%
sounds a bit optimistically small, and 50% sounds too high. There have
been at least two prior incidents where a child fell into a gorilla
enclosure (Jersey and Brookfield zoos) and in both those instances, the
child was basically unharmed and the gorillas exhibited no aggressive
behavior. Jambo was 7 years older than Harambe, and BintiJua
was
only 8 years old at the time (and had an infant on her back during the
incident). However, in both cases, the children were in a less
conscious state than the child in this current incident, so there was a
greater potential here for the child to act in a manner that the
gorilla could interpret as a threat.
There will be arguments about whether Harambe's
behavior was aggressive, or just a reaction to a noisy crowd some of
whom can be heard screaming, but Harambe was definitely dragging the
child by a limb in a manner that was not reassuring to any observers.
At the
same time, unlike many other species, gorillas are not naturally
aggressive, so there was no fundamental reason to assume that the
gorilla would injure the child for no reason, other than the surprise
of seeing the
child appear, and the noisy reaction of the visitors.
I have
never seen a gorilla that didn't get upset when a tranquilizer dart was
used and have seen aggressive gestures and reactions as well, and since
tranquilizers in the best case take several minutes to have effect,
that short period after the gorilla was darted could potentially result
in
more aggressive behavior than had been seen previously.
Shooting
a gorilla is not a simple proposition. First of all, a powerful rifle
has to be used - I would guess the zoo used something along the lines
of a .375 Holland & Holland Magnum - and we are talking about a
high-stress situation with a child in close proximity. A quick movement
as the trigger was being pulled could have put the child in jeopardy
and the damage caused by a bullet hitting almost any part of the
child's body
could well prove fatal.
However, as an AZA-accredited zoo, the
special team assembled to deal with situations like this would have
been practicing such scenarios on a regular basis, and would have some
familiarity with both the animals and the enclosures. I initially
thought that the
likelihood of the child getting serious injured or killed might be in
the
1-5% range, but probably not a lot higher than that since the nature of
the enclosure would have allowed the shooter to get pretty close. I
have subsequently been told that the shooter was a highly experienced
marksman who practiced on a regular basis both at the Zoo and at a gun
range - so that likely raised the confidence level of the Zoo personnel
that the shot could be taken without harming the child.
So what do we conclude from all this? Before reaching a conclusion, I
think a good question to ask is If
you were the parent, and it was your child, what would you want the zoo
to do? For many people, that question makes it a bit
easier to understand why the zoo chose to shoot the gorilla.
Suppose
the zoo told you they intended to tranquilize the gorilla and that the
odds
that your child would be killed by the gorilla before it passed out
were about one in ten. Would you agree to take those odds with your own
child? Or would you
take
the odds of shooting the gorilla which I think most Zoo Visitors would
agree
was significantly less likely to result in any harm to the child?
Some
will take a somewhat more cynical view of the situation: if the gorilla
is shot, it is unlikely the other gorillas will file a lawsuit against
the zoo for unlawful killing. But if the child is harmed because the
zoo chose not to shoot it, you can be sure in this litigious society
that the lawsuits will not be long in coming. We would like to think
that such considerations are not front and center, but I would not be
surprised if someone raised that issue.
But on the flip side,
shooting the gorilla is not going to be good publicity for the zoo
either. A
solution which involved saving the gorilla and the child would be
vastly more palatable to both the zoo and the general public, so I
think on that basis we should not dwell on the cynical aspects of the
situation.
When trying to make a decision about a course of action, there are TWO
things to consider:
1. What is the best
outcome in the situation? (gorilla's life is saved and child is
unharmed), and
2. What is the worst outcome?
(child dies).
Often
a decision is driven not by the hope for the best outcome, nor by a
rational analysis of the statistical likelihood of each outcome, but
rather by the realization that the worst outcome is simply not
acceptable under any conditions. That balance can often alter the
perception of what the
best course of action would be. If the worst outcome is unacceptable
under any conditions, then that option is often removed from the table,
regardless of its statistical likelihood.
And then let's apply
20-20 hindsight further. Let's say that the zoo chose to tranquilize
Harambe,
and Harambe went ballistic and caused the death of the
child. How many people currently condemning the Zoo's action for
shooting Harambe would now still be supporting the zoo's decision to
tranquilize? I think
everyone would agree the latter number would be a lot smaller. And that
particular outcome would cause a significant setback for gorilla
conservation and welfare because the general public, upon seeing
horrendous footage of the child being killed (you can be sure it would
be on YouTube),
would forever view gorillas as being dangerous and
aggressive animals. Just as the fortunate outcome in the Jersey zoo
established Jambo as the
gentle giant and helped change the public's prior
perception of
gorillas as horrific animals.
So
when all is said and done, I personally think the zoo had no choice
other than the action they eventually took. The only alternative that I
could see would be to have had the lethal weapon team with the gorilla
already lined up in their sites as a veterinary team darted the gorilla
with a far-higher-than-normal dose of Telazol and direct the lethal
weapon team to shoot upon the first sign of any aggressive reaction.
But
this would also involve a greater risk, and assumes that for the 5-10
following
minutes (it takes that long for the drug to take effect) that it would
not aggravate the gorilla to the point of posing a substantially more
dangerous threat. And suffice it to say the personnel on the scene had
access to information that we don't have and which may have weighed on
the final decision that was made.
At the Dewar Wildlife Trust,
we chose not to have any lethal weapons on the property, and if a child
had fallen into the exhibit (not likely, but anything is possible), we
would have had no option but to distract and tranquilize the gorilla.
Of course, we were dealing exclusively with a non-aggressive species -
if we had had other species there, we
would definitely have had to be in a
position to provide a lethal response - something that is generally
required by
the AZA.
In closing, I also believe that when it comes to the safety of the
exhibit that there is some merit in taking a Res Ipsa Loquitor
approach - i.e. just the fact that the child was able to find its way
into the exhibit indicates that there was an issue with the
safety/security of the exhibit. Certainly a zoo has a Duty of Care
towards the visitors in terms of ensuring their safety. That being
said, I do not believe that the Zoo was negligent in any way (this
assumes that the information available accurately reflects the nature
of the exhibit), but rather this incident should encourage a review of
exhibit safety and security at all zoos. Many exhibits are decades old,
and in the
past several years, the availability of sophisticated and inexpensive
devices for security monitoring offer the ability to provide a higher
level of safety. Motion detectors, PIR sensors, and webcams networked
to a central security system which also provides zoo personnel with
full access are things that simply weren't available when most zoo
exhibits were designed. At my house, I have a driveway alarm that sends
me a text message as well as ringing a bell, and I can view who is in
the
driveway from a webcam no matter where I am in the world, so I can
choose to open or keep the driveway gate closed from a remote location.
These types
of technologies, which are now relatively inexpensive, could definitely
provide a significantly higher level
of safety at zoos for both the animals and the visitors.
C. E.
Steuart Dewar
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