Monkeys leave Cedar Rapids

The monkeys are all gone from the zoo at Bever Park in Cedar Rapids. Parks Director Dave Kramer says the building was made of metal and was rusting out at the base, corroded by “the byproducts of monkeys,” he says, and it would have cost 30- to forty-thousand dollars just to bring it back to condition that was standard a quarter century ago. Kramer says the zoo didn’t even calculate what it would have cost to build modern-style habitat for the animals. They were mostly moved, not to other zoos, but to sanctuaries — the monkey equivalent of a retirement home. Kramer says they were fairly old and will live out their lives at the sanctuaries. But the lamented loss of the monkey house doesn’t mean Cedar Rapids’ century old Bever Park lacks a zoo attraction now. Construction on a new expanded farm zoo is to begin in the fall, the duck exhibit remains, and new educational exhibits will be built within the zoo. A small grassroots protest surrounded the removal of the monkeys but city officials say there was never any question the decision would be reversed.