TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Two chimpanzees beat a macaque to death after he entered their enclosure at Shoushan Zoo in Kaohsiung, reports said Thursday.

The macaque, also known as a Formosan rock macaque, is endemic to Taiwan. The one involved in Wednesday’s incident was living in the wild and did not belong to the zoo, per UDN.

Chimpanzees have strong territorial instincts and would see any intruder into their area as a threat, zoo management said. A visitor posted on social media that a macaque first almost took his bag when he was walking inside the zoo at 9:30 a.m. Shortly after, he witnessed how another macaque entered the chimpanzees’ enclosure and was beaten to death.

During the incident, the chimpanzees threw the much smaller macaque around and slammed him against the ground until he could not move. When one chimpanzee found the monkey was still breathing, he continued the attacks until the macaque was dead.

Zoo staff removed the animal’s body from the area and tried to calm the chimpanzees. In December 2023, a lion at Shoushan Zoo mauled a macaque to death, causing public consternation. 

The zoo said the monkeys were difficult to manage, and Wednesday’s incident might have started when the macaque misjudged a jump between branches and fell into the chimpanzee area.