Home to a troop of Hamadryas Baboons for many years but, after most of them were sent away and the remaining few males put to sleep, the enclosure sat empty for ages. Then the zoo put a couple of goats in there (the white blob up near the top is one of them). There was a plan to turn it into a walk-through lemur enclosure but I have no idea on whether that is still happening or not.
The metal fence just past the enclosure perimeter is along a public walkway behind the zoo.
@Wyman Agreed, especially because this exhibit hardly looks suited for it. A steep rocky slope like this would work well for gelada and barbary sheep perhaps?
@DelacoursLangur Nubian ibex as well. I'm not sure why the zoo wouldn't get a few more baboons though, considering that it seems like Australia has quite a few, as well as Auckland
@snowleopard in terms of an actual time-frame, the enclosure was constructed in 2000, the last of the remaining baboons were euthanised in February 2019, and the goats were placed in there at the start of this year (January 2020). So the enclosure was entirely unused for an whole year (Feb 2019 to Jan 2020) and has had the goats in it since then.
I assume it is a money-related issue, but it is a continually disappointing situation.
The situation came about because all the females were exported; reducing the troop to four males. The zoo wanted to phase this species out and no facility within the region wanted additional males.
Adelaide (with a troop of 3.1 Hamadryas baboon) are in a similar situation. It will be interesting to see how things develop with their troop in the future.
In my opinion, phasing out this species was a great loss to the zoo. It was once the largest troop in New Zealand (at around 20-25 baboons) and was subject to several animal behaviour studies due to the many fascinating interactions.
