In 2026, Taipei Zoo had an unusual run of animals getting outside their designated enclosures.
On May 18, a southern tamandua may have used a banana tree that snapped while she was climbing it as an accidental escape route. On July 4, a brown spider monkey jumped into the water and swam across. Then, on September 17, two chimpanzees got through doors that had not been properly secured.
The strange part is not simply that several animals escaped from the same zoo. It is that the “exit” was different almost every time. A tree, a body of water, and finally a human failure to lock a door. Put the incidents side by side, and this becomes more than a collection of quirky zoo stories.