Everyone has an opinion; This is mine.

I keep reading on the news about this incident with Harambe the gorilla and how Harambe got shot because a kid fell into the gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo.  I hear so much anger against the zoo for shooting the gorilla and so much sympathy for the gorilla and not once have I read:

Thank god that kid is safe.

Am I sorry that the gorilla got shot?

Of course.  It's a terrible, unfortunate incident.  But what bugs me about this is that everyone keeps assigning human emotions to this gorilla:

He was protecting the kid.

He was holding hands with the kid.

But really, what he was was a 400 pound wild animal who could have accidentally injured or killed that 4 year old just by handling him the wrong way with no apparent malice intended.

It was also a 400 pound gorilla who could have gotten spooked by an onlooker who decided to throw something at it, yell at it, or distract it in any way.

So, do I think the zoo did the right thing by shooting the gorilla?

I wish that they could have handled it another way.

But I think that they handled it the best way that they knew how, given the lack of precedent for such incidents at the Cincinnati Zoo.

And I really wish that humans would stop harassing the zoo, and the family, and just be grateful that we aren't planning a 4 year old's funeral.