Dresden zoo forced to rename primate named 'Obama'

Facing accusations of racial insensitivity, the Dresden Zoo has been forced to rename a baby primate called ‘Obama.’ This spring the zoo in the eastern German city named a newborn mandrill “Obama” after freshly inaugurated US President Barack Obama. But an advocacy group for black Germans demanded that the primate be renamed this week, calling the zoo’s choice racist.

“It’s a catastrophe,” director of the Initiative for Black Germans (ISD) Tahir Della said. “Black people continue to be confronted by associations with the animal kingdom and primitivity.”

The baby mandrill, which belongs to a species closely related to the baboon, was born on March 23, Manuela Collmar, zookeeper at the zoo’s “Afrika Haus,” said. Each year the zoo names all newborn animals beginning with the same letter.



“This year they all begin with ‘O,’ and one of the zookeepers chose ‘Obama’ – it was meant to be positive and an honour in light of his visit to Dresden in June,” Collmar said, adding that neither she nor her colleagues were aware of the history of using monkeys to caricature and ethnically stereotype black people.

In an email response to ISD director Della’s complaint about the mandrill’s name on Thursday, zoo director Karl-Heinz Ukena echoed her sentiments.

“The possible associations of this name choice were not considered, and the racist charicterisation – particularly with the background that the US president recently visited Dresden – was far off,” Ukena wrote, adding that the zoo had meant to express its “esteem” for Obama. Ukena went on to apologise for any “irritation” the name had caused.