When you know better, you do better, but it seems these parents missed the memo about zoo safety.
A Twitter user shared pictures of a small child standing on a ledge inside the African Plains rhinoceros enclosure at Dublin Zoo today, sending social media into meltdown.
The photos, tweeted by architect Ciarán Ferrie, show three adults standing beside the enclosure while one appears to be taking a photo of a small child who is standing beyond the wooden fence.
Just a child inside the rhino enclosure at @dublinzoo pic.twitter.com/xxsn8Dm5Ag
— Ciarán Ferrie (@ccferrie) July 30, 2016
While a trench separates the rock the child is standing on from the large open area beyond, he is very clearly inside a prohibited area.
Just weeks ago, Harambe, a 17-year-old gorilla, was shot dead after a three-year-old boy fell into the animal’s enclosure at Cincinnati Zoo. The child’s parents were widely condemned for not keeping a closer eye on the child, with many question raised over the extreme measures taken by zookeepers on the day.
Dublin Zoo is home to a number of Southern white rhinoceros, including Ashanti, Zuki, Jabari and his father Chaka, taken in as part of the European Endangered Species Programme established to assist the survival of the near threatened species.
It is estimated that only 20,000 of these animals exist in the wild, the majority are found in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Kenya but numbers are declining rapidly due to poaching as a result of a demand for horn.
Though they usually prefer to keep to themselves, rhinos are potentially extremely dangerous and are known to fight when they feel threatened. Their sight isn’t very strong, but they rely on their keen sense of hearing and smell to identify danger and they are also fiercely protective of their young.
In 2014, a zookeeper was left fighting for his life at Whipsnade Zoo near Cambridge when he was attacked by a one-horned rhino. The man, in his fifties, suffered injuries to the chest, abdomen and pelvis.
