Featured Image Credit: Harambe Documentary
Topics: Animals, Harambe, Documentaries
Lucy Devine
Audio of a 911 call reveals the distressing moment that a three-year-old boy fell into a gorilla's enclosure at a zoo in the US.
Back in 2016, a 17-year-old Western lowland gorilla named Harambe, was shot and killed by Cincinnati Zoo staff in Ohio.
Moments earlier, a three-year-old boy had fallen into his enclosure through a barrier, before dropping approximately 15 feet.
After falling into Harambe's enclosure, the gorilla approached the child and began to interact with him.
But onlookers and zoo officials became increasingly concerned when Harambe started to drag the boy from one side of the enclosure to the other.
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In the end, Harambe was shot and killed in order to save the boy, a decision which has always remained controversial by those who argue there was no need to kill the animal.
The little boy was rescued without any significant injuries and a documentary into what happened, titled Harambe was released last year.
In audio footage of the haunting 911 call, the boy's mother can be heard describing the moment as she begged for authorities to help save her child.
"My son fell in the zoo exhibit at the gorillas. There is a male gorilla standing over him," she desperately explains.
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"I need someone to contact the zoo please... He's dragging my son, I can't watch this. I can't. I can't watch."
Meanwhile, in another 911 call, a woman visiting the zoo tells the emergency services: "He's dragging him from one end to the other."
Since the incident, many people have wondered why Harambe was not sedated, rather than immediately killed.
Filmmaker Erik Crown has since explained why the zoo made that decision.
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"Actually it's very important that they did not use a tranquilliser because tranquillisers don't work the way people think of in movies," he told UnchainedTV.
"You don't fire tranquilliser dart and somebody goes down.
"It actually puts a system into overdrive which then shuts the system down it could take up to 20, 25 minutes to become active inside especially inside of a large gorilla.
"So that may have agitated Harambe and may have led to a different outcome, or a very dangerous outcome for the boy.
"So as much as we would have like to have seen a non-lethal ending to it, I don't believe the zookeepers necessarily had a choice with the way their program runs.
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"And that is exactly why we feel we should not have endangered animals in captivity anymore."