Gorilla killed to save little boy at Ohio zoo sparks public outrage

A gorilla killed at the Cincinnati Zoo by zoo officials after a 4-year-old boy stumbled into the ape's enclosure has triggered widespread outrage and questions about safety. Zoo officials says the decision to kill the mammal using lethal force was a tough but an inevitable call.

A petition on Change.org that out-rightly condemned the Cincinnati Police Department and the zoo for killing the animal and called for the child's parents to be "held accountable for their actions of not supervising their child." has been signed by more than 2,000 people.

The animal, named Harambe, was a Western lowland gorilla, an endangered species, and the zoo said it had intended to use him for breeding.

Cincinnati police on Sunday said the parents had not been charged, but that charges could eventually be sought by the Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney.

24 hours after the 400-pound gorilla was killed just moment after coming up against the child, a Facebook page titled "Justice for Harambe" had gotten more than 3,000 likes by Sunday afternoon, 

"If we think it's acceptable to kill a gorilla who has done nothing wrong, I don't think our city should have gorillas," Manvinder Singh posted on the Facebook page.

A blog post on the website for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals questioned why it was required to kill the gorilla and whether zoos could meet the needs of such animals.

"A 17-year-old gorilla named Harambe is dead, and a child is in the hospital. Why?" blogger Jennifer O'Connor wrote. "Western lowland gorillas are gentle animals. They don't attack unless they're provoked."

According to witnesses the boy willingly wanted to come together with the gorilla in the enclosure. Minutes after, the boy crawled through a blockade and fell about 12 feet into a moat surrounding the habitat, where Harambe grabbed him, zoo officials said.

"They made a tough choice and they made the right choice because they saved that little boy's life," he said, adding that a member of the zoo's Dangerous Animal Response Team fired the shot that killed the ape.

Maynard said the team decided to use deadly force instead of tranquilizers to trounce the gorilla because it could have taken some time for the drug to take effect when the animal was in distress condition.

The child was taken to Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center for treatment.