At least the Cincinnati zoo was licensed...

You can’t not feel sorry for that poor gorilla, though. I mean, it’s bad enough that he would spend his entire life in captivity, only to be shot dead while (apparently) trying to rescue a child from drowning. But to be named ‘Harambe’? I mean, come on… what sort of sadist could possibly do such a thing to an animal as magnificent as that?

Ah well… I suppose the name is now the least of poor Harambe’s problems. Being dead, after all, does have its advantages. All those other inconveniences you used to complain about when still alive? All gone forever, in one fell swoop… 

As things stand, the only remaining problems concern another species of primate: human beings, which are the only living creatures in the world that would first keep a caged animal on permanent display for purely entertainment purposes… then promptly kill it, the moment it doesn’t play by their own rules.

That, at any rate, is the overwhelming impression left in the wake of this unfortunate incident: the latest in a string of PR nightmares to have plagued the profession of zoo-keeping the world over (including Malta, but one thing at a time).

As tends to be the case with stories such as this, however, most immediate online reactions were just slightly on the hysterical side. Calls are now mounting for the prosecution of the zoo management for ‘murder’… not to mention the parents of that child for criminal negligence... and all along, the internet is slowly bubbling with memes seeking to anthropomorphise Harambe in often absurdly romantic ways. 

The gorilla, we were told, was actually ‘a better parent to that child than its own mother’. Its act of dragging the boy through water by the arm? It was ‘trying to protect it from all the screaming humans’, naturally…

Hmm. Much as I sympathise with Harambe in the circumstances, none of the above is strictly speaking true. Even if we accept that the gorilla’s intentions were entirely benign – something nobody can ever possibly hope to confirm – the fact remains that Harambe could very easily have killed or seriously injured that child regardless. A 17-year-old adult gorilla has enough strength in its upper body to uproot a living tree. Just think for a moment how easily it could accidentally dislocate a small boy’s arm… if not pull it out of its socket altogether.

And that’s if the gorilla really was trying to save the child’s life. People with experience handling live gorillas have openly expressed their doubts on that score. Sadly, the widespread perception of gorillas as ‘misunderstood gentle giants’ is not always borne out by the facts. Like most large herbivores with a constant eye open for predators, a gorilla can and often will resort to violence when confronted by ‘intruders’. 

Even ‘Gorillas in the Mist’ – the movie responsible for such misconceptions in the first place – makes this point quite clearly. Most people who watch that film come away with the mental image of Dian Fossey (played by Sigourney Weaver) holding an adorable baby mountain gorilla in her arms. Few remember that she only narrowly survived her first encounter with an adult male… by running away as fast as her legs could carry her.

This creates an entirely understandable dilemma for the zoo-keepers involved in this particular situation. It’s all well and good to argue that they should have used a tranquiliser gun. In reality, however, the proper dose of anaesthetic would have to be calculated first – an overdose would kill the animal anyway, while the opposite would have the arguably worse effect of enraging/frightening/ confusing it, thus placing the child’s life at even greater risk. 

The latter danger remains even if the dosage used is correct. As anyone who’s ever undergone surgery will confirm, anaesthetic takes time to kick in. More than enough time for a distressed gorilla to tear a little child to pieces…

No, indeed. Tragic as the outcome was for poor Harambe, the zoo keepers had little option but to shoot him. Meanwhile, we can rant and rage against the child’s parents all we like: but it’s not particularly helpful, seeing as there is no fool-proof method to successfully prevent children from doing all sorts of spectacularly stupid things. Nor is it even particularly desirable to do so. For what sort of world would it be, anyway, if five-year-old children didn’t get up to this kind of mischief all the time?

Having said all this, there is one aspect of the global criticism that does merit some consideration. People criticising the zoo management (or the parents, the child, etc.) are clearly allowing their emotions to cloud their judgment. But people who cite this incident as part of a wider argument against ‘zoos’ in general… arguing that the entire concept of keeping wild animals in captivity is in itself wrong… that’s a very different proposition, and one that is infinitely harder to counter.

I admit to having mixed feelings about this myself. As a child, I was utterly obsessed by animals in general – and gorillas in particular, having experienced the genuine trauma of watching King Kong fall from the Empire State Building when I was five years old (a trauma from which I have never fully recovered). My earliest known answer to the question ‘what do want to be when you grow up?’ was, in fact, ‘an animal’. Later, when informed that my career prospects would be somewhat limited, I settled for the next best thing: a zoo-keeper. 

Like Harambe, however, that ambition would not survive an encounter with the harsh, unforgiving reality of how modern zoos actually operate. And long before that unfortunate gorilla was killed in Cincinnati, a certain giraffe in Denmark (named ‘Marius’, presumably by the same sadist) had done infinitely more to dispel the myth of zoos as benevolent, beneficial institutions.

The truth, in this case, is far simpler than the fiction. Zoos today serve no purpose whatsoever, other than to parade wild animals for human entertainment in the manner of a 19th century freak circus. If nothing else, Marius the giraffe proved the point beyond all earthly doubt. The moment it stood (all 18 feet of it) in the way of international funding for the Copenhagen Zoo’s giraffe breeding programme – BANG! A bullet to the brain… after which it was fed to the lions, again for the entertainment of the masses.

But this in turn highlights another problem concerning zoos – or at least, the closest thing we have to one in this country. What Copenhagen and Cincinnati zoos both have in common – apart from the capital ‘C’, of course – is that both are fully licensed, regulated facilities, operating in conformity with the laws of the two countries concerned.

Not so the Montekristo Menagerie, limits of Kirkop: where at least one comparable incident has been reported in recent months, involving an infinitely more dangerous animal than a mountain gorilla (let alone a giraffe).

You will all surely remember the time when a small child was mauled by an adult tiger at the same establishment, suffering serious lacerations to the face and head. In that particular case, the responsibility of the ‘zoo’ management was infinitely more glaring than that of the incident which cost Harambe his life. The child did not give its parents the slip, then somehow manage to find itself inside the tiger’s cage. It actually worked the other way round: the keepers allowed the tiger out of its enclosure, at a time when the ‘zoo’ was teeming with visitors.

Unlike the Cincinatti case, it is simply impossible to put up any kind of defence of the Montekristo zoo management over that incident. It was caused by precisely the sort of crass, unprofessional dilettantism you would expect from a bunch of amateurs who do not know the first thing about zoo-keeping… which in itself is hardly surprising, seeing as they were never granted a licence to own and operate a zoo in the first place.

Oh, but wait: it gets even better. Despite gross negligence leading to the serious injury of a small child on that occasion, the illegal, unregulated and quite frankly dangerous ‘zoo’ at Montekristo Estates has not officially been closed down. And not only has it been allowed to retain its collection of illegally imported wild animals, in the absence of any serious zoo regulations of any kind… but this week, government announced long overdue legislation to regulate the importation and ownership of exotic and/or dangerous animals... and guess what? The laws were drawn up in such a way as to be perfectly inapplicable to the Montekristo Zoo, which will get to retain its illegal collection in spite of the manifest danger it poses to the animals and public alike.

At which point, an inevitable question arises. Where is the corresponding outrage in this case? Why are the people who so loudly demand ‘justice’ for Harambe, not kicking up an equally loud fuss about the Maltese government’s bizarre decision to allow an unlicensed, unregulated zoo to carry on its business as usual?  

Don’t all howl at once, people. I can’t make out what you’re saying…