The television news program of most audience on Brazilian TV, “Jornal Nacional”, made an unprecedented parenthesis in the disclosure of recorded political talks to release news that rarely is considered to be relevant. The 17-year-old gorilla Harambe, who lived in the Cincinnati Zoo, in the United States, was shot dead by guards at that anachronistic establishment when they were trying to save a four-year-old child who had fallen into the moat surrounding the gorillas’ enclosure.

A wave of anger and disgust at the attitude of the Zoo spread around the world, and a protest campaign intends to blame the boy’s parents for negligence for not properly take care of the child visiting the Zoo.

In fact, who should be prosecuted is the Zoo, which was unable to react to the situation and protect the child without the need to kill the extraordinary gorilla.

Obviously Harambe jumped into the pit with water, which is not an area he used to go at, but a barrier to keep the apes far away from the public, to protect the child because he thought he might drown.

If that anachronistic establishment was prepared to deal with this kind of situation and had numbed Harambe with a rifle shot with a telescopic sight, that all zoos own, it would no had the need to sacrifice him.

In the past few months, the minor number of news about what happens in these anachronistic establishments called zoos came out with four chimpanzees being killed in Spain, two lions in Chile and an experienced handler been killed by a Bengal Tiger at Palm Beach Zoo.

How long will we allow these anachronistic institutions to still exist, endangering the lives of animals and humans, as a form of entertainment for the population?

Dr. Pedro A. Ynterian

General Secretary, International GAP Project