Zoo visitors stay indoors as curious gibbons go walkabout

THERE WAS something of a role reversal at Dublin Zoo yesterday when some 200 visitors found themselves locked into the venue’s main restaurant after a pair of gibbons escaped from their enclosure and went on a short walkabout.

The siamang gibbons, Sasak and her baby son Gizmo, temporarily left their island habitat on the zoo’s main lake at about 10am yesterday.

Carrying her three-year-old infant, Sasak is thought to have swung from the island on to a low-hanging branch on the shore, in an apparent bid to sample life on the mainland.

While the primates posed little threat to their human cousins, zoo authorities took the precaution of locking down the complex while the gibbons remained at large.

Dozens of bewildered visitors were ushered into nearby buildings or directed to stay in the zoo’s main Meerkat restaurant while keepers attempted to cajole the runaways back home.

A Dublin Zoo spokesman said: “At no time were the gibbons out of sight of zookeepers and the pair never left the perimeter of the zoo. The gibbons were never further than five metres from their habitat and the pair returned of their own accord within 30 minutes.

“The animals were never in any danger and of no threat to anyone else. They are both back in their habitat in the zoo unharmed and everything has returned to normal.”

Gibbons are species of tropical forest apes, and unlike monkeys with which they are often confused, lack a tail, have a more-or-less upright posture and a well-developed brain.

The black siamang variety is native to the dense rain forests of Malaysia, Thailand, and Sumatra, and is the largest of all the gibbons, growing to about one metre in height. They are extremely agile and the most accomplished of all gibbons at walking on two legs.

Yesterday’s drama at the country’s most popular vistor attraction is the second unusual incident at the Phoenix Park venue in as many months.

Last month, one of the zoo’s prized Humboldt penguins was discovered by gardaí wandering Dublin’s inner city. The bird had been abducted by three men who had scaled the zoo’s perimeter fence.

Fortunately, the penguin was returned to the zoo unharmed.