Yet again, captivity has taken an animal’s life. The gorilla enclosure should have been surrounded by a secondary barrier between the humans and the animals to prevent exactly this type of incident. Gorillas have shown that they can be protective of smaller living beings and react the same way any human would to a child in danger. Consider Binti Jua, the gorilla who carried a child to a zookeeper’s gate. Even under the “best” circumstances, captivity is never acceptable for gorillas or other primates, and in cases like this, it’s even deadly. This tragedy is exactly why PETA urges families to stay away from any facility that displays animals as sideshows for humans to gawk at.
Statement from PETA Primatologist Julia Gallucci.
