South African town overrun with baboons - stealing food and squatting in buildings
A troop of baboons has over run a town where the animals are stealing people's food and squatting in empty buildings.
Simon's Town, in the Western Cape province of South Africa, houses a population of just over 6,500 - not accounting for the unwelcome primate inhabitants.
It is estimated that there are approximately 150 baboons living in Simon's Town.
The easy access to food from either rummaging through local bins or stealing food from shops and even kitchens makes in attraction location for the primates.
The baboons op are also often found lounging out on the streets and squatting in empty buildings.
Simon's Town, in the Western Cape province of South Africa, houses a population of just over 6,500 - not accounting for the unwelcome primate inhabitants.
It is estimated that there are approximately 150 baboons living in Simon's Town.
The easy access to food from either rummaging through local bins or stealing food from shops and even kitchens makes in attraction location for the primates.
The baboons op are also often found lounging out on the streets and squatting in empty buildings.
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00They are performing quite an important ecological role in spreading seeds through their droppings
00:13and so on, and the way they dig up roots and so on.
00:18So they, because they've been around for millions of years, they are an integral part
00:23of our local ecology.
00:29When they discover they can get human food, either from our waste bins or by getting into
00:34our kitchens, they get a big hit of carbohydrates and proteins and so on, which gives them a
00:44very lazy time, because once they've eaten that, they don't need to go foraging on the
00:49mountain, and that suits them.
00:52So our suburb, as it's grown around Simonstown and the town itself, has become a really attractive
01:02place for the baboons to come and visit.
01:05The baboons now can find their way into town with very little effort and resistance, and
01:14they have lost their fear of humans, which is also a new development, because going back
01:2020, 30 years, they were quite cautious of humans, because they knew that humans occasionally
01:26took a shot and killed one of them.
01:31But they've worked out how to both get into town, and they've been roosting often in old
01:39derelict buildings belonging to the South African Navy.
01:42So they spend most of their day around looking for ways to get into people's kitchens, foraging
01:50in their waste bins, and so on.
01:59They're reproducing much more frequently, the troop is therefore growing.
02:03But the troop is also suffering really significant harms by being in town.
02:10Remember, this is a busy little town with a high street and so on, and yet we find ourselves
02:19in the middle of a troop of fellow primates living out their lives.
02:29We had the experience of witnessing a baby, a very young baboon, crossing the road to
02:38presumably catch up with the troop and getting hit by a car and killed.
02:45And we noticed its mother then did what baboon mothers do, which is they hold the corpse
02:53of their baby for days and will travel around with it for days, if not weeks.
03:00And then, almost immediately afterwards, another female in the same troop giving birth.
03:07And we know that because of their access to a lot of human food, high-calorie food, their
03:16birth cycles are getting shorter and shorter.
03:19So here is yet another pregnancy come to term right in the middle of town.
03:24So we're witness to things that would normally happen on the mountain in the wild, but it's
03:29all happening right in front of us, which you could say, well, that's a little bit like
03:35having National Geographic right in the middle of your high street.
03:42But for those of us who live here, it feels more tragic than that.
03:46They should not be having to die and go through that grief and give birth in a busy high street.
03:54That's not natural for baboons.
03:57It's not good for them long term.