Maryland Zoo Weighs In on Gorilla Debate

BALTIMORE, MD – Zoo security is top of mind after authorities shot a gorilla Saturday once the animal grabbed a boy who fell into his enclosure.

The gorilla was a 400-pound male Western lowland silverback named Harambe. He was shot dead at the Cincinatti Zoo after grabbing a 4-year-old who fell in his pen.

The boy—who joked about playing in the water with Harambe minutes before—climbed under a railing, walked over wires and scaled a moat to get to the gorilla, according to CNN. Zoo officials said this was the first breach of the enclosure in the 38-year history of the Gorilla World exhibit.

At the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, officials check every day to make sure barriers are intact at its exhibits, according to ABC 2 News.

The Baltimore zoo has no gorillas on its campus, but there are 11 chimpanzees in the Chimpanzee Forest.

On top of daily checks of the barriers, zoo personnel conduct quarterly drills to practice what to do in the event that an animal escapes the Maryland Zoo, ABC 2 reported.

After Harambe was shot and killed by a zoo employee with a long rifle in Cincinnati, animal rights activists are calling for a review of security measures there.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has cited the zoo twice in the last two years for safety violations, including failing to secure doors of polar bears and having rotting wood as part of the exhibit where horses and monkeys were kept, according to Reuters.

Maryland Zoo General Curator Mike McClure told ABC 2 that he could not recall any similar issues in Baltimore. He also said that shooting the gorilla to save the child "seemed like an entirely appropriate thing to do."

Related: Gorilla Shot After Grabbing Child in Zoo Enclosure

Screenshot from YouTube/Maryland Zoo.