Jane Goodall to Cincy zoo director: 'I feel so sorry'

Jane Goodall, the world-renowned British primatologist and conservationist, said in an email she feels for Cincinnati Zoo executive Thane Maynard.

Goodall, in an email sent to Maynard the day after the shooting death of 17-year-old lowland gorilla Harambe, told Maynard she felt "so sorry for you, having to try to defend something which you may well disapprove of."

"I tried to see exactly what was happening - it looked as though the gorilla was putting an arm round the child - like the female who rescued and returned the child from the Chicago exhibit," Goodall wrote in the email to Maynard, dated Sunday night. "Anyway, whatever, it is a devastating loss to the zoo, and to the gorillas. How did the others react? Are they allowed to see, and express grief, which seems to be so important.

"Feeling for you."

The email correspondence was released Thursday morning by the Jane Goodall Institute. Additional messages from the conversation weren't included in the Thursday release.

Maynard previously referenced a communication between the zoo and Goodall in the wake of Harambe's death.

Harambe was shot and killed by zoo personnel Saturday afternoon after a 3-year-old boy fell into a Cincinnati Zoo gorilla enclosure.

Police have wrapped up their investigation without recommending charges against the mother of a 3-year-old boy who witnesses said fell into the gorilla exhibit at the Cincinnati Zoo, according to a source close to the investigation.

Cincinnati police don't recommend criminal charges in gorilla case