Givskud Zoo - Gorilla enclosure

The gorilla group in their huge enclosure during feeding time in Givskud Zoo, Denmark.
August 2006

Is the electrified stock fence at the back still the only barrier for them? It is very simple but also very effective- though I heard that the silverback 'Samson' once climbed over it and nested down on the other side, and then climbed back into the enclosure again later. True or false?

You are correct Pertinax. Here is the story of the escape which I have posted in an earlier thread:

You might also be interested in the polevaulting gorilla story from sometime in July 2010:

Finaly, another male managed to escape the secondary enclosure a few years back. This was a male from Duisburg living with his group in Givskud while their own exhibit was being renovated. No one knows how he managed to make it over the water moat but suddenly he was on the visitors pathway. He got very scared and confused and ran out of the exhibit, hid in a small picnic/lunch house a few hundred meters away and waited under a table to be captured by the staff.

So Givskud Zoo has had a total of three "freak" escapes from their gorilla enclosure since it opened back in year 2000.

Thanks for the information about the escapes at Givskud (I only looked at this thread again now).My guess is the Duisburg male was their old 'Catou' who is dead now, as their enclosure was redone some years back now.

There is one young male 'Kipenzi' (Samson x Salome) in this group who is genetically very valuable as his mother is dead and his grandmother was Frankfurt 'Makulla' whose genetic line is now very limited.