OUTRAGE AS DEATH OF 17-YEAR OLD GORILLA GOES VIRAL [SEE DETAILS]

In case you missed it, we reported the killing of a gorilla named Harambe at the Cincinnati Zoo yesterday, after a 4-year-old boy tumbled into the ape's enclosure.

The incident has triggered outrage and questions about safety, but zoo officials called the decision to use lethal force a tough but necessary choice.

According to Reuters, more than 2,000 people signed a petition on Change.org that sharply criticized the Cincinnati Police Department and the zoo for putting down the animal and called for the child's parents to be "held accountable for their actions of not supervising their child."

Cincinnati police on Sunday said the parents had not been charged, but that charges could eventually be sought by the Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney. A spokeswoman for the prosecutor did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A Facebook page titled "Justice for Harambe" had more than 3,000 likes by Sunday afternoon, a day after the 400-pound (181-kg) gorilla was shot dead about 10 minutes after encountering and dragging the child

"If we think it's acceptable to kill a gorilla who has done nothing wrong, I don't think our city should have gorillas," Manvinder Singh posted on the Facebook page.

A blog post on the website for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals questioned why it was necessary to kill the gorilla and whether zoos could meet the needs of such animals.

"A 17-year-old gorilla named Harambe is dead, and a child is in the hospital. Why?" blogger Jennifer O'Connor wrote. "Western lowland gorillas are gentle animals. They don't attack unless they're provoked."

It was the first time in the 38-year history of the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden's gorilla exhibit that an unauthorized person was able to get into the enclosure, zoo president Thane Maynard said on Saturday.

"They made a tough choice and they made the right choice because they saved that little boy's life," president Thane Maynard said.

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