However unfortunate the loss may be, it was right to kill Harambe the gorilla

It was obviously right to take firm, decisive action to save this four-year-old child’s life

Harambe was a 17-year-old silverback western lowland gorilla (Twitter/Cincinnati Zoo)

In the internet age – where The Independent now proudly, and solely, resides – it is common for local stories from around the world to achieve something like global fame. It is also common for videos of animals doing remarkable things to go viral. Put the two together and throw in social media, and you have a recipe not only for news that loses its moorings, but views that are frankly unhinged. And so it is with Harambe the gorilla.

In case you missed it (or should that, in Twitter parlance, be “ICYMI”?): on Saturday, a four-year-old boy climbed into a gorilla enclosure at Cincinnati Zoo in the US. He was there for around 10 minutes, during which time he was dragged hither and thither by Harame, a 400-pound, 17-year-old Western lowland gorilla. The boy was dragged violently around a moat. Then, while still between the gorilla’s legs, staff at the zoo shot the animal, killing it to protect the boy.

The internet nearly melted over the weekend, so widely was video footage of the incident, caught on camera phone, shared. But now there is an even more rapacious online backlash, with hundreds of thousands signing petitions and launching tirades online to denounce the zoo workers. Still photos from the saga, which appear to show Harambe with his hand near the boy’s hand, have been mobilised to argue that he was in fact trying to look after the boy. This conveniently overlooks the fact that, seconds later, the boy was violently thrown across the water. Nevertheless, petitions have been signed, hashtags have been typed, and outrage has been expressed.

This is all getting rather silly. It is a great shame that Harambe was killed, the more so because the four gorilla subspecies living in the rainforests of central Africa and its western lowlands are the most numerous and yet still endangered. But the idea that a tranquiliser dart could have been used is immature: it would have taken several minutes to take effect, during which time the vast ape, already agitated, could have done terrible harm.

It was obviously right to take firm, decisive action to save this four-year-old child’s life. To argue otherwise, other than for want of titillating readers, is to show a shameful and flagrant disregard for the superior worth of human life to that of our nearest relatives.