Why take animals out of the wild then kill them once they start to act wild?

Animals, like humans, deserve to live. Whether they are dolphins, pandas or cheetahs, they all have a right to be alive.

Over Memorial Day weekend, America found out about the death of Harambe, a 17-year-old western lowland gorilla that was killed at the Cincinnati Zoo.

The cause of his death? Zookeepers determined that his life was not as important as that of the three-year old boy who fell into his enclosure.

Witnesses, however, say Harambe was actually helping and protecting the boy, which the video seems to support as well.  While this is the first time a child has fallen into the gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo, there have been two other incidents with children falling into gorilla enclosures at other zoos. Which means that zookeepers should have been more prepared to handle this situation humanely.

There is no precedent of a gorilla harming a child in a zoo.  In 1996, a three-year old boy fell into a gorilla’s enclosure in Chicago, and the gorilla there at the time, named Binti Jua, carried the little boy in her arms to the zoo service’s door.  In 1986, a gorilla named Jambo approached a motionless little boy that fell into his enclosure and guarded him, placing himself between the little boy and the other gorillas as a protective gesture as apes circled around them to see the scene.

So why did the zookeepers kill Harambe?  And why was he locked in a zoo habitat in the first place?

He was killed after “putting an arm around the child — like the female who rescued and returned the child from the Chicago exhibit,” as gorilla expert Jane Goodall said.  

Let’s start at the root of the problem, which is the fact that animals are removed from their natural homes in the first place. Like humans, they love where they live, and taking them is not saving them, but kidnapping. They are being shown off not as sentient beings but as currency.

There have been many instances where animals were taken from the wild and brought to zoos or aquariums for human entertainment. Like gorillas, aquatic animals are taken from their homes, or like Harambe, born in captivity. The reason for their captivity? To entertain us.

The fact that they killed Harambe as a first act, instead of it being a last resort is very disturbing. Zookeepers said that the tranquilizers they had would act too slowly to save the boy’s life and could have made Harambe violent.  But zoos, knowing that this kind of situation has happened in the past, need to develop a more humane option.

So was the killing of Harambe justified? In my opinion, no.  Is the child’s life important?  Absolutely.  But so was Harambe’s. And had he been in his natural habitat instead of in a cage for our entertainment, he would still be alive today.

Humans do not own animals.  It is not right to take animals out of the wild, and we sincerely hope that in the future, people will look back on this barbaric practice and condemn it as a relic from the past the same way we do with injustices in our past.

We hope the boy is doing fine and this is a lesson to them and everyone else going to zoos. As for Harambe, other gorillas, and all other animals in captivity worldwide, we hope change can happen soon.