Founded in 1860 the Cologne zoo is apparently internationally renowned, a fact I only learned from hearing them repeatedly claim it. The baboons inhabit a massive little monkey town that seems to be at the epicenter of most every walking path. The placement of the baboons is somewhat unfortunate given that they are some of the foulest smelling beasts on the planet. If one spends some time looking at the history of this zoo some rather unfortunate incidents crop up. During world war II the zoo itself was reduced to a smoking ruin, no mention is made of the animals that likely inhabited the area at the time sadly.

Last August through someones simply not paying enough attention when closing a door, a tiger escaped. Now most of us would use our new found freedom to perhaps flee, not this tiger. He decided that mauling a zookeeper was a better use of his time, needless to say he was shot in the face for his efforts.

Having a reputation for an exceptionally large array of critters on display the zoo has gone to great, albeit horrific, lengths to acquire them. The important thing to remember is that gorillas, like humans, are somewhat fond of their children. So when in the late 60’s the zoo sent some poachers to steal them a few wild gorilla children the predictable and completely expected happened. Twenty dead gorillas later the zoo was able to enclose two nearly sentient beings in a stone hell for the amusement of their slightly more sentient cousins. Coco and Pucker lived until the ripe old age of 10, keeping in mind gorillas in the wild have a 40 or 50 year lifespan, before dying in misery.