A gorilla has been shot dead in a US zoo after he grabbed a young boy who fell into the enclosure.
The gorilla, weighing more than 180kg, held the four-year-old boy for about 10 minutes before he was shot by a dangerous animal response team, the head of Cincinnati Zoo said on Saturday.
"A young boy crawled through a barrier at the gorilla centre and through some bushes and fell into the moat," zoo director Thayne Maynard told reporters.
"Harambe, our 17-year-old gorilla male, went down and got him ... and was moving him around," he said.
"The child wasn't under attack, but was certainly at risk.
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"It seemed to be a life-threatening situation," Maynard said.
The response team used lethal force rather than tranquillisers, as the drugs would not have had an immediate effect, exposing the child to more danger, he said.
The boy was taken to hospital with "serious injuries", local television station WLWT5 reported, but was not named, and the hospital did not release details of his condition.
"It's a sad day all the way around," Maynard said.
"The decision was not made lightly. Lowland gorillas are very endangered animals, there aren't very many in captivity. But it has the proper ending."
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