More than fifty baboons reportedly escaped their enclosure at a zoo in Paris on Friday, prompting evacuation of the premises.

The alarm was raised at the Paris Zoological Park when an employee bumped into one of the monkeys in a corridor.

Le Parisiene writes 52 of the animals escaped in total and that 48 were captured using a net shortly afterwards.

“We have them surrounded,” one officer told the newspaper, adding: “They can be dangerous. They mustn’t get out.” 

The zoo, often referred to as the Vincennes Zoo, is located on the edge of the Bois de Vincennes, south east of Paris. In the afternoon it tweeted a statement to confirm that four baboons remained on the loose but that they had not roamed into any public areas.

Paris last experienced an animal-on-the-loose alert when a tiger briefly roamed the city after escaping from a circus cage last November. The animal was shot dead.