Cincinnati Zoo Director: The Gorilla Was ‘Clearly Agitated’ and ‘Clearly Disoriented’

Monday at a press conference the director of the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Gardens Thayne Maynard explained the decision to kill a 17-year-old male western lowland gorilla to save a 4-year-old boy who got into the gorillas enclosure.

Maynard said, “The gorilla was clearly agitated, clearly disoriented. And so, the idea of waiting and shooting wit a hypodermic was not a good idea. That would have created alarm in the male gorilla and as I’m sure you know when you dart an animal or you yourself go to the hospital, anesthetic works in a minute to ten minutes. So the risk was due to the power of that animal.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN