Switzerland Today
Dear Swiss Abroad,
In Basel, the city’s zoo has seen great tragedy on a small scale as a male gorilla has killed his baby and a rival. “Losing two gorillas in one day – that is extremely tough,” the zoo’s curator said.
The official account of the incident refers to “natural behaviour”. Dominant gorillas would not usually see castrated males as rivals. But naturally, there is little natural about being parachuted into a zoo to lead an unfamiliar troop – nor to live there castrated.
And naturally, we are now shaken by the event – after all, we are but apes ourselves.
Best regards.
Yeba the gorilla has killed his baby and a perceived rival at Basel Zoo.
A four-day-old gorilla baby died in the incident, according to a statement by Basel Zoo. The silverback Yeba fatally injured it with an apparently unintentional bite to the chest. For Yeba, it was seemingly a game. “He was like a child who has been watching another child play with a toy car the whole time. Eventually, he just grabbed it,” zoo curator Adrian Baumeyer told the Basler Zeitung.
It is the second death among gorillas at the zoo within just a few days. On Tuesday, it was reported that 11-year-old male Mobali would have to be put down, after Yeba had bitten him on the backside and in the genital area.
The 14-year-old silverback Yeba moved into the monkey house at Basel Zoo last year and has led the gorilla troop ever since. But in recent months, tensions arose between Yeba and the castrated male Mobali. Despite intensive support and measures put in place for Mobali, the two were repeatedly at loggerheads, the zoo wrote.
It also clarified that killing young animals, or infanticide, is an observed and scientifically described behaviour in gorillas. The baby gorilla’s mother, Joas, is still carrying the dead infant around – which the zoo is permitting, as a natural way of saying goodbye.
Several drones have been spotted over the Gösgen nuclear power plant, in the Swiss canton of Solothurn. The background is unclear, but it is not the first unexplained drone incident in the country.
At around 10:30pm on Sunday, a local resident alerted police after counting at least seven drones flying towards the plant. In early July, drones were also seen near a military barracks in Jassbach, canton Bern, where the army has its cyber defence centre. There were also sightings near an air force base in Meiringen in canton Bern – the future location for the country’s new F-35 fighter jets.
In Autumn 2025, drones were also seen over the Laufenburg electricity switching station in canton Aargau. The facility is considered one of the most important electricity hubs in Europe. This sighting, at least, has since been clarified: according to Swiss public television, SRF, the drones were flown by the grid operator.
Blaming Russia for every unexplained flying object makes the Kremlin seem more powerful than it is, says Ivo Capaul, a researcher at the federal technology institute ETH Zurich. Capaul, who has previously analysed such hybrid actions, told the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) that “stirring up fear is part of the Russian strategy”. If a few drone flights are enough to make Europe believe that Moscow can attack critical infrastructure at will, the effect of these attacks is disproportionate. But “the data does not support this,” says Capaul.
With attractive jobs, high salaries, and a high quality of life, Switzerland is attracting more and more French.
TextIn the past decade alone, the French community in western Switzerland has grown by over 50%. If the trend continues, it could soon replace the Portuguese community as the largest foreign population group in the French-speaking region of Switzerland, RTS public radio reports. This is already the case in cantons Geneva, Vaud and Jura; it could happen in Neuchâtel within the next two years.
Neuchâtel is specifically bidding to attract highly qualified professionals from France. According to Roland Nötzel, Neuchâtel’s head of economic development, companies in the canton are constantly looking for highly specialised workers. French professionals are in particularly high demand, as they can quickly integrate thanks to cultural proximity.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has reprimanded Switzerland again – this time about the food on offer for prisoners. Two vegan brothers sued because they did not receive animal-free meals.
The court in Strasbourg partially upheld the complaint brought by the two vegans, who argued they did not receive food corresponding to their ethical convictions during their respective imprisonment and psychiatric stay.
According to the court’s decision, Switzerland thereby violated the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. The lawsuit was filed by two brothers: one was imprisoned in Geneva for 11 months from 2018; as an animal rights activist, he had thrown stones at butcher’s shops. The other spent two months in the psychiatric ward of Vaud University Hospital Centre in 2021.
Both requested vegan food. In both cases, mistakes were made and they did not always receive vegan meals. Previous ECHR rulings against Switzerland have been about things like discriminatory widower’s pensions or – in a much-publicised 2024 case – for taking insufficient measures against climate change.
Translated from German, sub-edited by Domhnall O’Sullivan
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