Baboon Island - Guinea Baboon

For details, see my review http://www.zoochat.com/22/review-brookfield-zoo-157283/

When did Brookfield Zoo ship out their Guinea baboons (Papio papio) and where did they send them? Were they shipped out to make way for the construction of Great Bear Wilderness or did they die off through attrition? The only United States zoos that still keep them are Kansas City Zoo and Indianapolis Zoo.

@UngulateNerd92 I’m not sure where they sent them or when the exhibit closed, but the location of the exhibit was on one side of Tropic World so not where Great Bear Wilderness is.

@UngulateNerd92 The last three baboons were elderly individuals that were euthanized in September of 2013. This exhibit has since been demolished and replaced by the Hamil Family Nature and Science Plaza, which is essentially a large botanical garden and event pavilion.

@pachyderm pro ah thank you. I am sorry that they had to be euthanized. Did they have any health issues? If so, what specifically? How are the Guinea baboons at Indianapolis Zoo and Kansas City Zoo doing?

@UngulateNerd92
Brookfield's Guinea baboon troop was breeding beyond capacity and the decision was made to sterilize them in 1992, and the zoo had plans at the time to phase them out and then introducing a more endangered species of baboon afterward:

Monkey Island is nearly as old as the zoo itself, built originally to house a colony of Rhesus monkeys. Over the years, the island has been home to Malay bears, antelope, meerkats, monitor lizards and – during one summer after they were confiscated at a local airport – a few Nile crocodiles.

But for decades the colony Guinea baboons, which were introduced to the zoo in 1938, delighted adults and children alike. The baboons’ familial habits and the fact that they weren’t shy interacting with humans made them a must-visit.

But in 1992, following the recommendation of the American Zoo Association’s Species Survival Plan, Brookfield Zoo stopped breeding the baboons and their numbers steadily dwindled.

“They became a phase-out species [in zoos], for others that needed conservation efforts,” said Ziegler. “They are still a very common baboon. They are very adaptive to human habitats.”​

The individuals that remained twenty years later were geriatric and not doing well. I heard this at the time as well from docents. This was summarized in articles when they passed:

Baboon Island, the man-made mountain just inside the South Gate and home at one time to more than 70 Guinea baboons, was quietly closed last week after its three remaining inhabitants were euthanized “due to quality-of-life concerns,” according to a press release. The baboons ranged in age from 22 to 27 years old.​

At the time they were euthanized, the intention was to replace the island with a new habitat for an unspecified species.

The exhibit, originally called Monkey Island, dates to the mid-1930s. It will be demolished in 2014 to make room for an as-yet unnamed exhibit.

“Whatever we do will be a ground-level exhibit, whether it’s like the Great Bear Wilderness where acrylic panels allow visitors to get up close, we’ve just not decided yet what we want to do there in terms of what kind of species,” said Bill Ziegler, senior vice president of collections and animal care.​

The intent according to the master plan at the time was to develop a Japanese Macaque habitat in place, but that exhibit never came to fruition as @pachyderm pro mentioned above, and it instead became a beautiful nature plaza.

Quotes are from the Chicago Parent, I was writing this out based on experience but thought the official zoo statements would help.

@JVM thank you so much! I greatly appreciate it!