It’s been just over two months since Harambe the Gorilla was killed after a child fell into his habitat at the Cincinnati Zoo, but unfortunately, people still haven’t learned from the accident.
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The boy, who has not been identified, was reportedly with three adults. One horrified onlooker, who said the lad was in the pen for 20 minutes, said: “It was such a stupid thing to do”. “He was only [meters] away from the rhinos”.
One of the photos of the incident on Saturday afternoon was taken by architect Ciarán Ferrie, who posted it on Twitter. “People were totally horrified”, a witness said.
On July 30, images appeared online of the boy standing inside the fence of the rhinoceros enclosure, a few yards away from a southern white rhino in the African Plans area of the zoo, as reported by the Daily Mail.
“The matter is being taken care of internally by Dublin Zoo”, she said.
‘The child stood there for a good while and the man kept letting go of his hand and telling him to move further back to pose for a picture, ‘ she claimed.
The adult can be seen taking photos of the boy while passers-by take pictures of the two of them. It’s completely against Dublin Zoo’s health and safety rules but it is being looked into at the moment’.
Gillian Bird, from the Dublin Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (DSPCA), said rhinos were docile animals.
Roisin Brolly, 19, from Foreglen, Co Derry, was mauled by an Amur tiger when she crossed the fences near the animal’s enclosure.
She put her hand through the wire mesh of a third protective fence and the tiger ripped into her limb, causing significant injury.
A safety review found Dublin Zoo could have done nothing more to protect her.
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