Photo Gallery Bad Monkey, No Nuts
Set on a lake in the hinterlands of Thuringia in eastern Germany, the Straussberg Adventure Park is known for its "Monkey Forest," where around 80 apes live in a landscaped open sanctuary. Here, a baby plays on the grounds.
But for three young Barbary macaques known by the names of Fred, Richard and Paul, the scenic surroundings recently turned into an abject hell.
Six-year-old Richard, who at 16 kilos (35 pounds) is rather sluggish and slow, was caught the very next day by Silvio Dietzel.
The zookeeper located Fred five days later and shot him out of a poplar tree with a stun gun some four kilometers away from the sanctuary.
The problem arose from the imbalanced gender ratio of the Barbary macaque community in the animal park, says Brigitte Dietzel, who runs the facility with her son Silvio. Out of 28 apes, 20 are males, which can lead to trouble in the 1.5-hectar (3.7-acre) enclosure.
To make matters worse, the 17-year-old alpha, Cornelius, is known to be moody, jealous and power hungry.
Paul and his endangered anatomy remain at large in the miles of forest surrounding the monkey park. Every day a search party goes out looking for Paul, but he has thus far managed to avert capture. "Yesterday we got a call that someone had spotted him," said Brigitte Dietzel, who runs the facility with her son Silvio. "But by the time we got there, he was gone."
