The Cincinnati Zoo has temporarily closed its gorilla exhibit after a special zoo response team shot and killed a 17-year-old gorilla that grabbed and dragged a four-year-old boy who fell into a moat.
Zoo officials said the boy fell after he climbed through a public barrier at the Gorilla World exhibit on Saturday afternoon. He was picked up out of the moat and dragged by the gorilla for about 10 minutes.
Authorities said the child, who has not been identified, fell 3m to 4m. He was taken to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, where he was expected to recover. Hospital officials said they could not release any information on him.
Zoo director Thane Maynard said the facility’s dangerous animal response team decided the boy was in “a life-threatening situation” and that they needed to put down the 181kg-plus male gorilla named Harambe.
“They made a tough choice and they made the right choice, because they saved that little boy’s life,” Maynard said. “It could have been very bad.”
He mourned the loss of the gorilla, which came to Cincinnati last year from the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville, Texas.
“We are all devastated that this tragic accident resulted in the death of a critically endangered gorilla,” he said in a news release. “This is a huge loss for the zoo family and the gorilla population worldwide.”
Two female gorillas were also in the enclosure when the boy fell in, but zoo officials said only the male remained with the child.
Maynard said the gorilla did not appear to be attacking the child, but he said it was “an extremely strong” animal in an agitated situation, adding that tranquilizing the gorilla would not have knocked it out immediately, leaving the boy in danger.
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