Tumalo chimp rescue staff speak about gorilla killing

The video taken Saturday of a 3-year-old boy falling into the gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo has become a controversial topic of discussion. Harambe, 17-year-old male gorilla, was shot and killed by a special zoo response team after the boy was dragged around the enclosure.

“I’m taking a picture, and I hear a little banter with the mom and the boy. ‘I want to go in.’ ‘No you don’t.’ Then about a minute later, I hear a splash,” said Kim O’Connor, the woman who took the circulating cellphone video – before the gorilla was shot and killed.

“By the time I got to the end of the exhibit, unfortunately, that is when we heard the shots. But the people who are saying he shouldn’t have been shot, the little boy should be shot — the mother should be you know, taken up on charges. They don’t know what happened that day. We’re talking seconds. Seconds! Sixty seconds, 30 seconds. There wasn’t anything to prevent it really. It was a freak accident,” said O’Connor.

NewsChannel 21 spoke Wednesday to the chimp experts at Chimps, Inc. in Tumalo. Although chimps are different from gorillas, they are all part of the great ape family.

Leslie Day, founder of the Chimps Inc. sanctuary, said although it’s heartbreaking and terrifying, shooting the gorilla may have been the right call.

“Wild animals are so unpredictable, and I think the right decision was made,” Day said.

Many people have asked about whether Harambe the gorilla could have been tranquilized, rather than killed.

“Tranquilizing — and I don’t know anything about tranquilizing a gorilla — but it does take our chimps quite a while to be sedated.,” Day said. “And in the meantime, they’re very fearful and scared, because they know something is wrong with them and they’re out of control.

“They’re wild animals, and they’ll always be wild animals. They don’t belong in captivity but unfortunately they are in captivity,” said Day.