On Sunday evening, an 11-year-old fugitive gorilla named Little Joe sat on a bench at a bus stop in Boston, eagerly waiting to hop the first bus out of town. Joe was fresh off of his escape from the Franklin Park Zoo. Despite the ‘hot wires’ installed following Little Joe’s first failed escape attempt, he made it out this time, becoming the first gorilla ever to escape from that zoo.

But alas, his escape was foiled. In King Kong-like fashion, tranquilizer darts were hurled at the ape and he was lulled into sedation, shackled and dragged back behind bars where he belongs. It would be a funny little story (maybe not to PETA), except for the fact that Little Joe is not so little, and weighing in at 300 pounds, he attacked a two-year old-child and a teenager before being captured. Joe grabbed the two-year-old, threw her to the ground and jumped on her. He was able to scale a steep wall and cross a moat because he hasn’t reached puberty yet and was agile and small enough to maneuver his way out of the supposedly secure tropical zoo.

The zoo’s well-groomed plot thickens. One of the presumed reasons it was so hard to keep Joe in captivity is because he is a sexually frustrated and aggressive young male whose needs aren’t being met. According to a Boston Globe report following the incident, Joe and a bunch of hormonally charged adolescent male gorillas live in a ‘single group of males and females rather than in gorillas’ more natural grouping, a harem where a single sexually mature male mates with several females.’ The imprisoned males are aptly called bachelors and as they become more interested in females, they become harder to control. When the males are grouped together, away from the females, it is easier to control them because there is not as much competition or showcasing among the males. However, once a female is thrown into the picture, the males start strutting their stuff.

So, wild gorillas are used to picking from the litter whenever they please and disseminating their sperm randomly and broadly; they are the kings of their territories and just can’t handle being monogamous family men. That may be how apes act in wild habitats, but they need to learn that behavior is not acceptable in captivity; they need to mature, and in order to mature, they need to be trained. Until that happens, they shouldn’t be indulged with more females or they will never grow up.

Following the rules of operant conditioning, I say we either mildly shock them for bad behavior or deprive them of reward until they exhibit acceptable behavior. Humans as well as apes need pain sometimes as much as pleasure to stay invigorated. Put simply, the gorillas must be isolated, kept away from females and denied sex until they mature. Now this may sound a bit harsh, but the alternatives are altogether scary. We now know what happens when a gorilla is let loose: he acts completely out of control, indiscriminately attacking all who get in his way. If we were to emulate the ape’s natural habitat and provide it with a plethora of females, it would only tend to its animal instincts and mate excessively with multiple women, producing innumerable bastards who would all grow up to be subsequent hormonally charged and aggressive nymphomaniacal male apes. The captive ape population would multiply, overcome the confines of the zoo, overpower the human race and eventually inherit the earth. One day the apes would exceed population control limits, except maybe in China, and not have access to an ample food supply. To safeguard the future of the human race from extinction, disease and physical assault, we should make a concerted effort to capture as many apes as we can and train them to become responsible family men, using somewhat torturous and repressive tactics if necessary.

The zoo is supposed to be a secure place for young children to frequent but apparently it isn’t and someone needs to be held accountable. There are currently 375 captive gorillas in the United States, not forsaking the large numbers of lions and tigers and bears, oh my! This isn’t the first incident of disorderly conduct, which makes it all the more inexcusable; in 1998, Hercules escaped from a Dallas Zoo, bit a zookeeper and dragged her down a hallway. This monkey business has to stop and states must seriously mend the loopholes in zoo security systems. Small children are being maimed.

In closing, I say that when an ape’s actions are selfish, harmful to others and entirely motivated by an organ rather than guided by the intellect, the creature must be controlled. Since zookeepers have failed to keep these apes in line, the state must step in and hike up security precautions. Please hand the job over to a skilled and professional woman this time.

Amy Horowitz, a senior in the College of Communication and the College of Arts and Sciences, is weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press.