Affenberg Landskron

Affenberg Landskron is a zoo in Villach, southern Austria, best known as the country’s largest semi-free-ranging enclosure for Japanese macaques. Around 180 monkeys live on a 4.5-hectare wooded hillside that is fenced but otherwise left to them. The site operates under Austria’s strictest zoo category, drawing roughly 150,000 visitors each year. The park opened in 1996 after the model of earlier Barbary macaque mountains such as the one in Salem. Soon after opening, all 39 animals briefly escaped, an incident that drew wide media attention before they were recaptured within six weeks. Since 1998 the zoo has run joint research projects with the universities of Vienna, Graz and Kyoto, letting students study macaque behaviour at close quarters. Guided walks lasting about forty-five minutes run several times daily, explaining the monkeys’ biology, culture and social rules. A display of intelligence puzzles shows how the macaques solve problems, while two ponds let visitors watch them swimming and diving on hot days. The hillside sits directly below the medieval Landskron castle, whose nearby eagle arena shares the same private road.