But not the reason you think.

  • @Pantherina@feddit.de
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    267 months ago

    Do gorillas kill babies of other animals, monkeys or humans?

    I just dont really believe that Harambe would have done anything to that baby.

    • Karyoplasma
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      307 months ago

      It’s a wild animal caged for display. As in: may act erratically.

    • @Ballistic_86@lemmy.world
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      227 months ago

      In this particular situation, Harambe was causing harm to the child, more of a curiosity but with a very strong and less dexterous creature. I don’t think a wild animal should be held accountable for being themselves. So his death is still bullshit.

      There is another example of a child falling into a gorilla enclosure and a female gorilla protected the child from the other gorillas until the zoo staff arrived.

      Most males in the animal kingdom are, at best, indifferent to children of other males/species. At worst, they actively kill babies from other males.

    • Phoenixz
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      147 months ago

      They may or may not. I’ve seen a documentary once about a Jaguar that killed a gazelle (I believe) that just had its calf born. The mother was dead and being eaten, the calf had nowhere to go and just stayed with the Jaguar who then sort of accepted the calf and let it live. They became this super weird parent - offspring pairing that, of course, didn’t work. The calf needed feeding, there were obviously no gazelles near, and if I recall correctly it either died soon from malnutrition, or after a few days the Jaguar just killed it anyway. The narrator speculated that the Jaguar might have lost its offspring shortly before and still had that motherly instinct.

      Moral of the story is. Animals are driven by instinct and hormones, don’t trust they will not shred you.