Overview & visitor information
Baboon Reserve opened at the Bronx Zoo in 1990 as a large naturalistic habitat modeled on the Ethiopian highlands. Artificial cliffs, grass slopes, water and broad sightlines replace a conventional primate cage, allowing geladas to move across steep terrain in a social group.
Geladas are grass-eating primates whose complex calls, facial displays and red chest patches structure life within large multilevel societies. Nubian ibex share the rocky landscape, and rock hyraxes and African waterfowl add species that use different niches within the same geographic interpretation.
Public paths look across the reserve rather than surrounding individual animals at close range. The layout makes behavior, terrain and mixed-species relationships the central exhibit, while interpretation connects the zoo population with continuing Wildlife Conservation Society research and conservation work in the animals' native range.
