Wild Barbary macaque population on Gibraltar’s Upper Rock Nature Reserve.
Barbary macaques in Gibraltar are a semi-wild population of Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus) living mainly on the Upper Rock in the Gibraltar Nature Reserve. They form about five groups and are the only free-living monkeys on the European continent, considered an important tourist attraction and symbol of Gibraltar.
Barbary macaques in Gibraltar are a semi-wild population of Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus) living on the Rock of Gibraltar. They are the only population of free‑living monkeys on the European continent. Sources describe around 230 to about 300 animals, organised in five groups or families, most of them occupying the Upper Rock area within the Gibraltar Nature Reserve, though they sometimes enter the town and can damage property. The macaques originate from North African populations, with genetic evidence indicating founders from both Algerian and Moroccan regions. Earlier ideas that they were remnants of an ancient Iberian population spreading through southern Europe have been rejected by genetic studies. Historical accounts record their presence on the Rock long before the British capture of Gibraltar in 1704, and writers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries described them as long‑standing “owners” of the cliffs. Locally they are often called Barbary apes or Rock apes in English, and monos in Spanish, even though they are monkeys, not apes. They are regarded as one of Gibraltar’s main tourist attractions, especially at the Apes’ Den near Queen’s Gate, where animals frequently approach or climb on visitors, and feeding them is prohibited by law.
