On 31 August 1986, five-year-old Levan Merritt fell into the gorilla enclosure and lost consciousness. Jambo stood guard over the boy when he was unconscious, placing himself between the boy and other gorillas in what ethologists analyze as a protective gesture. He later stroked the unconscious boy’s back.
Harambe’s good cousin lol
it would be the timeline if harambe wasnt killed.
“Most of the incident was recorded on home video and extensively photographed by zoo visitors.”
Which is why we’re not posting a single picture of the incident in this article.
You are using a bad client. Get a proper one.
I remember this. I was, like, seven years old at the time. It was all over the news. I remember it made my mom cry.
mom crying
“Why are you crying, mom?”
“I ju-hu-hu-hu-ust wanted to see a gorilla rip that boy to shreds!!! Is that so much to ask???”
mom runs off to her room crying
That boy, Donald Drumpf.
Me too! I absolutely didn’t remember the gorillas name or what zoo.
IIRC this happened in Illinois as well. A female gorilla who had babies in the past picked up the boy, took him to the door to the enclosure, and patiently waited to hand him over to the zookeepers.
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Nowadays we just shoot the animal and claim it’s humanitarian.
Dicks out
The trouble and difference with the Harambe situation is that he was disobeying his handlers and riled up by what he thought was a crowd angry at the kid(he likely wouldn’t have thought the crowd was scared of what he might do, since he knew he was being helpful and didn’t have presence of mind to consistently realise others might have different opinions than his own). So he wouldn’t let go of the kid, and would have likely been defensive if handlers tried to come in and get the kid. He also was large enough that if they tranquilized him, he could have easily crushed the kid just by slowly passing out on him. They unfortunately had to take the only guarantee they had and shoot him at a moment when he was far enough from the kid that he wouldn’t fall on him.
Harambe also didn’t have any previous experience with taking care of kids, gorilla or otherwise. And believe me, that makes a huge difference. While the kid ended up mostly ok physically, he was dragged around by his ankle, through water and over rough terrain.
Nobody wants to kill a zoo animal. Especially not beloved ones. Especially not while they are trying to be nice.
My man Jambo!
