Silverbacks are powerful animals, weighing up to 180kg. It is hard to predict how any individual will react under stress, but based on the video footage, Harambe did not appear to be behaving aggressively.
When faced with a stressful, noisy and threatening situation, gorillas – like most other animals, humans included – have a physiological “fight or flight” response. Gorillas are sensitive and respond to non-verbal behaviour, such as towering over them or staring at them, which can be seen as a threat. He appeared to show behavioural signs of stress – hardly surprising given that people were shouting and screaming at him. It is impossible to say for certain whether Harambe would have become aggressive. As animal researcher Marc Bekoff points out, Binti Jua was hailed as a gentle “heroine”, whereas Harambe was treated as a threat, but in both cases the gorillas were in situations where they had no control over the outcome. While the zoo visitors were also screaming and yelling, an eight-year-old female gorilla, Binti Jua, “rescued” the boy by carrying him to zoo staff at a side entrance. In 1996, a three-year-old boy fell into a similar enclosure at Brookfield Zoo. But because of the rarity of such events, zoo staff may be inexperienced with situations involving human intruders (accidental or otherwise) in an exhibit. There are strict legal requirements for protecting the public. Additional precautions are taken for all incidents or interactions with those considered dangerous species (such as big cats, great apes, elephants and so on). Who should fund these improvements?Īll zoos have regulations and procedures to follow for risk management, including animal escape and recapture.
#Cincinnati zoo silverback gorilla upgrade#
The cost of building optimal enclosures for gorillas runs into millions of dollars, which places constraints on zoos who rarely have the funds to upgrade or redevelop enclosures. This is as true for containment as it is for the animals’ other needs: space, complexity, and behavioural and psychological stimulation.
But for great apes such as gorillas, it should no longer be acceptable simply to meet minimum standards. In terms of minimum standards, the Cincinnati Zoo enclosure is suitable. For extra security, a second barrier, sometimes electrified, is needed to keep people away.
If an outdoor enclosure has some type of moat for containment, it may be a deep concrete moat with shallow water (less than 50cm) for gorillas to use without risk of drowning (gorillas can’t swim).Īccording to one set of recommendations, the typical minimum barrier should be 3.65 m high and 3.65 m across, but there is no law concerning minimum standards for gorilla enclosures. In light of this, there are certain principles that can be followed for the safe design of enclosures for large animals. One of the biggest questions about the Cincinnati Zoo incident is how the young boy could so easily have fallen into Harambe’s enclosure and come into direct contact with him.
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