BERLIN (AP) – About two dozen monkeys came out of a zoo in southwestern Germany and spent the day basking in the sun near a forest before being captured, authorities said Thursday.
Barbary macaques, commonly known as Barbary apes, escaped from the Loeffingen Zoo, southwest of Stuttgart and not far from the Swiss border. It was not entirely clear how they fled, but construction work on the zoo could have been a factor, police said.
The primates were seen roaming the area in a package, but zoo employees were unable to retrieve them and eventually lost track of them. A few hours later they were detected, recovered and returned to their cages without incident, police said.
“Apparently, the animals took advantage of the good weather and spent the afternoon on the edge of a forest near the zoo,” police said.
The Barbary macaque is native to the Atlas Mountains of North Africa and has a small but famous presence across the water in Europe in the British territory of Gibraltar.