Seven year old kid attacked by a leopard at the Wichita Zoo. Who's to blame?

A very unfortunate situation. The person watching the children will have to bear a lot of the fault.

I would say that the volunteer is responsible in that instance.They were supposed to be watching the kids in their group.
As for a kid that doesn’t know how to act? That would be a testament to his parent’s child-rearing skills.

Of course the volunteer is most responsible but…a kid decides to take off in a place as crowded as the zoo, and he can be gone and disappeared in a matter of seconds…in the time it takes the volunteer to tie another kid’s shoelaces. What made this kid think it’s OK to run off when you know he was told specifically to stay with his group?

The person who was supposed to be watching the child is responsible. He never should have gotten that close. And no, I don’t think the zoo it to blame. The cat had never attacked and they had no reason to believe it would. As they said, the animals may be in a zoo but they are still wild animals and the fences are there for a reason.

I remember one time I was visiting a friend in Manhattan and her daughter, who was about that age, 7, her school had a field trip to see a play and it was to be their first trip as a class on the subway. They asked for enough parent/volunteers so that there could be one adult for each two children and my friend asked me if I wanted to go; she had some things to do and thought I might enjoy spending some time with Madeline. I was happy to but I was terrified of being responsible for two little lives, two precious daughters. I thought oh god! What if one of them gets away from me and falls on the tracks and gets run over. They had us each hold the children’s hands and as we got down into the subway, near the trains, I was holding their little hands in mine so tightly, in such a death grip that at one point the other little girl looked up at me with a very sweet but pained expression and asked me very sweetly and politely if I could not hold her hand so tightly because it kind of hurt. LOL. I loosened up and lightened up too and everything went very well, no casualties, except for my ego a little, and everything went fine.

I think most of the blame lies with whoever was supposed to be watching the kid and of course the kid, who did this to himself. Who knows how well the parents prepared the kid for leopard attacks; I don’t really know how to answer the question of how much blames goes to the parents, so I’m neutral on that aspect.

Edit: Also…..How cognitively developed are most seven year olds? Do seven year olds really have to be watched like that? I’m not familiar with child development. I just assumed 7 is good age to recognize an animal as big as you could possibly be dangerous.

@Dutchess_III “Who raised this kid to think the rules don’t apply to him?” Sometimes kids could be the most unpredictable beings ever no matter how much conditioning you apply to them. It’s the ultimate fault of the adult who took the responsibility. No adult should be careless in not knowing what such and such number of kids you can’t handle.

How come somebody has to be to blame? It was a peculiar circumstance. I bet it doesn’t happen too often. The only way to prevent it is make the animals completely non-observable, or ban children from the zoo, or only permit one on one supervision of children. Then you would only have to deal with drunks http://www.yelp.com/topic/los-angeles-drunk-man-killed-by-bears-at-ukrainian-zoo-after-falling-into-enclosure

In watching the video, it doesn’t appear that the cage the leopard is confined to and the barrier is enough to prevent anyone, child or adult, from easily coming into contact with an animal.

Unless there was malicious intent from the parent/chaperone, let’s face it…it is hard enough to oversee the constant actions of one 7 year-old, much less four or five at the same time, in an open space.

There is no mention of what type of parents/guardians the child has, and even if there was, it is not going to prove much, unless an in-depth study is conducted. Even then, that can be faulty.

No one has mentioned the school administration, which selected or approved this zoo for a field trip. Their intent was to have what they felt was enough adult volunteers on hand to chaperone the children.

As for the boy who was attacked, he owns a portion of the responsibility in the outcome as well.

The child is alive and is in fair condition. Hindsight is 20/20. Let’s not focus on who was in the wrong, but how to prevent it from happening again. I suspect that all parties involved, including the child, are feeling miserable over the situation.

No doubt the Zoo will be sued as well as the design firm and the construction company.

I actually think the school is partially to blame. 4–5 kids for one parent who is not used to caring for that many children is difficult, especially in a crowd. They are not certified child care workers or teachers. Perhaps one adult per 4–5 students is sufficient IF the entire group stays together and the parent is pretty much responsible for making sure those kids stay with the group. That way there are other parents and teachers there as backup.

Of course the parent in charge is going to be held responsible and considered at fault, but it would be interesting to hear her version of the situation. Did the child dart through the crowd and she was trying to locate him? Did another child dart through the crowd so she had to avert her attention to finding that child? Did a kid need a shoe tied? She is going to feel guilty for the rest of her life.

That really isn’t much of a fence and the holes in the cage are large enough for the leopard to get its paws through. Zoos know children are the largest part of their visitors – they should be better prepared for an impulsive kid.

I think there is plenty of blame to go around.

I like @lillycoyote‘s story. When I am responsible for other people’s children I am especially freaked that something might go wrong. The thing about the child not being raised to be obedient and follow rules, well watching a pretty kitty probably is different than looking both ways at the street or holding on tight while in the subway. There was a recent question on fluther about petting wild animals, and my response was I never do. People talked about squirrels and others. Even adults who know better want to reach out and touch the furry animals,

Some adults/parents really don’t think in terms of bad things can happen, so on a field trip it is hard to know what kind of adult is minding the children. Even the most paranoid responsible adult can look away for a split second and something bad can happen. But, many are not paranoid. My SIL used to do things that would freak me out, and sometimesher kid got hurt. When she came to stay with me with her toddler son I borrowed a friends gate to bar off the stairs, and she didn’t want to put it up. On the second or third day he went tumbling down the full flight of stairs. When I used to go to the pull with her and her kids I was the one wo watched them the whole time they were in the pool. Her philosophy is they have to “learn.”

“who raised this kid to think the rules don’t apply to him?” – what an unusual reaction. I’d never go there, I think. He’s a 7 year old. I knwo 27 year olds with just as poor impulse control.

There should be a law against raising stupid children. Then we’d have a real crime with a real source to cast blame upon.

7 year olds don’t get enough credit. They aren’t stupid, they know how to follow instruction and rules. I’ve been to several zoo trips with children this age and the children are always instructed by zoo officials on how to behave and told it is important to not taunt the animals. I’ve never witnessed a child run off and climb over a railing or fenced in closure. I wouldn’t expect this type of behavior from a child because he/she is “just 7 years old”. A 3 or 4 year old, maybe. If this was such common behavior for a 7 year old, you would hear about it happening more often.

I don’t know any of the people in question, so I can’t really place blame on anyone. The child obviously was a few cards short of a deck and the parent volunteer was either distracted or not doing his/her job.

I hope this beautiful animal will not be destroyed as a result of the incident. Whoever is or is not to be blamed, the leopard is innocent.

I don’t think either the zoo is to blame at all . If I come to think of it even the volunteer parent is only partially to be blamed that it let the kid out of his sight.

I know that most kids are pretty unpredictable but come on, its parents should have taught him it’s not good to even remotely mess with persons or animals way bigger than him.

The meaning of a fence is not a difficult concept. Confronting huge untamed animals might not have come up a lot, but physical barriers should have come up before the child was two.

Anybody feel like casting a few particles of blame toward purveyors of kiddie entertainment, and specifically animated movies, that make wild animals of every kind look like kindly friends? Even humble woodland creatures like squirrels and chipmunks can deliver a nasty bite if you get too close, and they don’t sing to cheer you up when you’re sad.

@Jeruba I’m not as convinced as you are about the fence concept. I grew up in a large neighborhood where there were no fences and the children roamed freely. That was ~35 years ago, and the only fences that have gone up since are underground electronic fences to keep dogs in the yard and those around a swimming pool. In the local park, there is a wrought iron fence around the large pond. It is to prevent young children from falling in while they reach through the bars to feed the ducks bread crumbs and being encouraged by the adults.

The consideration for including the child entertainment industry into the potential pot of ‘those that might own a piece of the guilt pie’ is valid. These birds do not depict the demeanor that the ones in Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs and Cinderella displayed.

I taught at a preschool one year. We took a field trip to the zoo. I had 4 kids between the ages of 4 and 6 that I was responsible for. Well, I also ran a daycare for several years before that. After losing MY OWN SON once (the little shit…I said it was time to get in the van, 8 kids got in and half way to my destination I realized…“O shit! Chris isn’t with us!” He’d hidden behind the couch when I said it was time to go. he was 4. He never did it again!) I devised a “Buddy check” system. I’d pair up kids and when ever we left anywhere and everyone got in the van I’d holler “Buddy check!” And the kids would account for the kid they were paired with. It worked wonderfully.

In the pre-school trip I paired kids up and told them they had to hold hands with their buddy, and I held the hand of the one of the buddy kids, so we had a chain. I told them if their buddy let go of their hand for any reason they were to inform me immediately. Not one kid got eaten by a leopard! But is that really feasible with older kids, like 7?

As to the parent issue…I don’t know the people involved. Was the kid a constant problem in school? Did the kid constantly break the rules? Was the parent watching the kid aware of it? If so then that child probably shouldn’t have been allowed on the field trip.

But I could see it happen. You have four kids, one kid needs their shoes tied, and the other kid darts off behind the watcher’s back and is gone in a few seconds.

I agree with everyone who said a seven year old is plenty old enough to be responsible for not breaking rules. If anyone says the kid was just being a kid, then no one under the age of ____ should even be allowed to set foot inside the zoo.

I blame animated movies for all the vegetarians in the world.~

What you talkin ‘bout @jonsblond?

I have the definitive answer. I ran the situation by my own 7 year old granddaughter who knows that particular zoo very, very well. She’s been there a million times. I said, “If you were on a field trip at the zoo, and you were told to stay with you group, but you kind of ran off and climbed over the rails and walked up to a leopard cage, and the leopard kind of hurt you, whose fault would it be?”

She looked at me like I was stupid. “Mine,” she said. Then shook her head and went back to her book.

The end.

GA, @Dutchess_III, and a bunch of balloons for your granddaughter.

LOL! Thanks @Jeruba!