Harambe was seventeen years old. He was not human, but he could, as well, be a being with human instincts. In any case, he was the ancestor of human beings, the homo sapiens , who evolved from homo erectus lakhs of years ago. More so, he belonged to one of the many species on earth that are endangered.
Yes, Harambe was a gorilla. Confined to his enclosure in a zoo at Cincinnati in Ohio, United States, he must have often wondered about so many human beings of varying ages coming to see him, some of them even trying to touch him and offer him fruits. Among them there were so many cuddly kids with whom Harambe might have wanted to play.
How would he know that one morning he would have an encounter with a little child coming to him seemingly from nowhere? He was suddenly face to face with a human friend. He did not know that the child had fallen from his parent’s arms into the enclosure.
He perhaps wanted to rescue the child from the moat. He knew this much: that he had unexpectedly got a companion to care for and carry around. He was not aware that his sharp finger nails could wound a human child. Poor Harambe had not seen the tears in the eyes of the kid.
The thought that his presence and proximity would drive someone to tears had never crossed his mind. He had often seen such children from a distance. Now, one of them had come close to him. This must have delighted him no end.
But, for the parents of the child it was a terrible moment. Indeed, the sight of the child in the clutches of a 400-pound gorilla must have stunned and numbed the senses of all the spectators. There must have been a lot of confusion and commotion in the zoo following the incident.
That the child was in danger of being mauled by a huge primate must have put the zoo authorities in the horns of a dilemma. His desperate cries and the parents’ anxiety might have forced them to take immediate and decisive action.
No alternative for them From their perspective there was no alternative to killing the gorilla in order to rescue the child. And that was what was done. The gorilla was shot and the child was brought up to be hospitalised, with extensive injuries on his body.
Whether the marks of injury on the child’s body were signs of Harambe’s affection for him, or evidence of the gorilla’s deliberate attempt to harm the child, may never be known.
The child is now recovering from his injuries. But Harambe is no more. This has saddened animal-lovers all over the world and provoked animal rights activists. They blame the parents for their negligence, and the zoo authorities for their insensitivity.
It would appear that the human race has actually not made much progress on the moral plane in evolutionary terms. The act of the zoo authorities was apparently rational, but certainly devoid of moral worth. What was thought to be expedient at that critical moment was done.
Relief and remorse Some people must have heaved a sigh of relief that a human life was saved; it might have also filled many hearts with remorse at the loss of another life, and with the feeling that justice in its highest form had been sacrificed.
Aristotle rightly said: “At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.”
ananyabehera@gmail.com
