On Thursday evening, all four orangutans in the Prague zoo managed to escape from the pavilion for a few dozen minutes. The keepers lured them back with a banana.
The orangutans managed to disconnect two parts of the stainless steel net of the outdoor enclosure of the Indonesian Jungle Pavilion. The enclosure has strips of stainless steel mesh on the walls and ceiling. According to the zoo’s director, Miroslav Bobek, who brought the incident to the zoo’s attention on Facebook, the animals managed to find a place where a wire only connects the individual strips, and they disconnected it. They then went out to explore the surrounding environment.
According to Bobek, the orangutans moved along the sidewalk for a while and then climbed onto the roof. The keepers were able to lure them back into the enclosure with a banana.
The director added that the first to return was the male Pagy, followed by the adult female Diri, and finally, the female Mawar and the male Kawi, of whom Pagy is the father. The orangutans spent several dozen minutes in the wild.
The zoo’s visiting hours were slowly ending at the time of the orangutans’ escape. “My colleagues immediately found out, so we closed the roads and the whole area,” Bobek noted.
The zoo will be checking all connections in the coming days, and the orangutans will remain in the indoor exhibit.