My dad died the same day David Bowie died. It really sucks to have all of your friends post things like, "David Bowie was an inspiration to me and made me the person I am today. His star has fallen and I will be devastated forever. Also, sorry about your dad, dude."
After the following years, I've quietly taken the whole "this is when we diverged into the darkest timeline" schtick an iota more seriously. It's been a strange 8 years.
In this particular situation, Harambe was causing harm to the child, more of a curiosity but with a very strong and less dexterous creature. I don’t think a wild animal should be held accountable for being themselves. So his death is still bullshit.
There is another example of a child falling into a gorilla enclosure and a female gorilla protected the child from the other gorillas until the zoo staff arrived.
Most males in the animal kingdom are, at best, indifferent to children of other males/species. At worst, they actively kill babies from other males.
They may or may not. I've seen a documentary once about a Jaguar that killed a gazelle (I believe) that just had its calf born. The mother was dead and being eaten, the calf had nowhere to go and just stayed with the Jaguar who then sort of accepted the calf and let it live. They became this super weird parent - offspring pairing that, of course, didn't work. The calf needed feeding, there were obviously no gazelles near, and if I recall correctly it either died soon from malnutrition, or after a few days the Jaguar just killed it anyway. The narrator speculated that the Jaguar might have lost its offspring shortly before and still had that motherly instinct.
Moral of the story is. Animals are driven by instinct and hormones, don't trust they will not shred you.
There was another incident of a gorilla protecting a child that had fallen into the habitat from other gorillas. So, I think it depends on the gorilla.