Murders at the Zoo

Look, I don't want to be controversial or sound callous, or anything, but I just have to say that in that business about the gorilla being shot at at that US zoo after a four year child fell into its enclosure, well, I think they shot the wrong one.  I mean, the gorilla is the endangered species whereas four year old children - well, they're pretty commonplace, aren't they?  Not that I'm advocating the shooting of children, obviously.  But killing the gorilla did seem a little extreme, considering that, to the best of my knowledge, there are no documented cases of gorillas attacking humans.  Apart from King Kong, obviously.  But he was forty feet tall and severely provoked.  To return to the point, there was a similar case many years ago in a zoo in, I think, the Channel Islands, where a small child fell into the gorilla's enclosure and the ape took up a protective stance.  The child was recovered, completely unharmed, without having to shoot the gorilla.  But hey, in the US gorillas always seem to get a raw deal.  Just ask King Kong.

But it isn't just captive gorillas getting shot through no fault of their own.  There was also that business of those two tigers being shot dead after a naked man got into their cage in some kind of suicide attempt.  One wonders why he couldn't have just thrown himself under a bus or taken an overdose like normal suicidal people?  But, no, he had to run naked into a tiger enclosure - and it was the tigers who got shot, presumably so that they couldn't eat him.  Which, surely, was his desire?  Once again, the tigers are the endangered species and naked loonies are, sadly, far too numerous.  Was there any indication that were going to attack him, or were they just innocent bystanders, stunned into inaction by the sight of this stark bollocking naked lunatic running through their cage?  The only reason for shooting the poor bastards was, presumably, the fear that if they got a taste of human flesh, they'd become man eaters.  Although it's hard to see where they'd get an opportunity to put this into practice, as they were safely locked up in a zoo.  Sure, they'd probably lie there giving leery looks at zoo visitors and licking their lips as they passed the cage, but that's just the sort of thing all cats do, big and small, to try and wind people up.  No the only time they could have eaten anyone was when someone was stupid enough to break into their cage - and even then it would surely count as natural selection, wouldn't it?