Escaped Barbary macaque on the loose from wildlife park in Germany

A young escaped macaque remained on the loose in southern Germany near Lake Constance on Saturday, and has caused quite a stir in the local community.

The Barbary macaque escaped from the Salem Monkey Mountain wildlife park in the area, and park manager Roland Hilgartner said he suspects the animal managed to jump from tree to tree in order to clear the fence around the enclosure.

2If they’re a bit sporty, they can jump over there,” he said.

The animal was last spotted on Friday morning on a roadside near the town of Uhldingen-Mühlhofen.

“No animal has ever been this far away,” said Hilgartner, who has worked at the park for 17 years.

The enclosure fence is designed in such a way that it is very difficult for the animals to get outside – but they can climb back into the enclosure from the outside. Hilsgartner said it is common for macaques who get out to come back.

“The pressure to be with the group, in familiar surroundings, is great,” he said.

However, he believes that the unnamed macaque could survive well outside the wildlife park, at least for the time being, as animal keepers only need to feed the macaques during the winter. There is plenty of plant food and the animals also eat insects, he said.

The flora and fauna on both sides of the fence are no different, Hilgartner said, “and they might even find an apple or two in the orchards.”

On Friday, the police and Monkey Mountain staff tried to lure the young animal from a tree with food, but the primate fled into a larger wooded area.

The gray-brown Barbary macaques come from mountainous regions of Morocco and Algeria and are on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List for threatened species.

According to the park, the global population of Barbary macaques is estimated to be less than 8,000.

On Monkey Mountain, almost 200 animals live in a 20-hectare wooded area as they would in the wild. Visitors can walk through the enclosure and get quite close to the animals.