Cincinnati zoo shoots gorilla dead as child falls into moat

An American zoo has temporarily closed its gorilla exhibit after staff shot and killed a gorilla who grabbed and dragged a 4-year-old boy who fell into a moat.

Cincinnati Zoo's special response team shot Harambe, the 17-year-old African western lowland gorilla that picked the boy out of the moat and dragged him for about 10 minutes. Zoo officials said the boy fell after he climbed through a public barrier at the Gorilla World exhibit on Saturday afternoon.

Authorities said the child, who has not been identified, fell 10 to 12 feet.

He was taken to Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, where he is expected to recover. Hospital officials said they couldn't release any information on him.

Zoo director Thane Maynard said the response team decided the boy was in "a life-threatening situation" and that they needed to put down the 400-pound-plus male gorilla. He said: "They made a tough choice and they made the right choice because they saved that little boy's life, it could have been very bad."

Maynard, however, mourned the loss of the gorilla, which came to Cincinnati in 2015 from the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville, Texas. "This is a huge loss for the zoo family and the gorilla population worldwide."