Overview

• Zoo management has designated culling as the fallback option if transfer agreements for its Guinea baboons do not materialize and has not set a timeline for the procedure.
• Enclosure space designed for about 25 baboons now shelters roughly 45 individuals, generating conflict-driven injuries within the troop.
• Rewilding was dismissed due to a lack of secure habitats in their native range, underscoring the zoo's reliance on the European breeding program to preserve the species.
• Director Dag Encke described the situation as a necessary but regrettable "factual dilemma" as the zoo evaluates its obligations under animal welfare, conservation and criminal statutes.
• Pro Wildlife and the Deutscher Tierschutzbund have threatened legal action, arguing that killing healthy baboons over self-imposed space constraints violates German animal welfare law.