Wish I could let this story go, but it’s haunting. It’s all so sad. Of course the mob was hysterical, that’s understandable. The zoo had to act fast – they did not have benefit of the video to analyze. That’s understandable. What I can’t agree with is the “it happens so fast with little ones” excuse for the mother. Have I lost a child? Yes. Do I get that they are little Houdinis? Yes. But I just cannot understand losing track of what we now know was a three year old at a zoo exhibit, and a dangerous one at that. After I had my second child I never went to the zoo without another person or people. We all watched each other’s kids, especially  the littlest ones.  If that make me a judgmental old lady then I guess I am.

I stand by my original observation that we live in a theme park world where people don’t think apes and bears and deer are wild animals and who think rushing rivers with waterfalls are turned and off with a faucet and “stay on the trail” signs in a canyon don’t apply to me.

Actually the whole damn situation blows. Heartbreaking, and I DO feel sorry for the mother of the little guy. I don’t think she should be shot, charged or otherwise made to feel like the worlds biggest loser. She made a terrible terrible mistake. I just hope that others learn from that mistake. Otherwise zoos will be forced to go back to what they were when I was a kid – animals in cages.

As far as eliminating zoos, I strongly disagree. For some people it is the only way they might learn the truth that greets you at the SF Zoo: “…but when the last individual of a race of living things breathes no more, another heaven and another earth must pass before such a one can be again.”
C. William Beebe