Where in the Netherlands the wolf occupies people's minds, in South Africa it is the baboon. After years of attempts to let humans and apes live together peacefully, the municipality of Cape Town wants to catch over sixty baboons and place them in an enclosed area. The plan is leading to protests.
It is bin day in Simon's Town, at the southern tip of the Cape Peninsula. A baboon knocks over a grey trash bin and rummages through the garbage. He finds half a croissant and a carton of sour milk. Within seconds, the contents of the bin are spread across the street.
The baboons know exactly when to strike: on the day the household waste is collected, food lies ready to be picked up. Some animals have even learned to open doors and windows to steal food from kitchens.
The South African Adam Welz, who lives in another coastal town on the peninsula, has experienced this several times. He shows a video of a baboon eating a jar of peanut butter empty on his countertop. "It looks funny, but it has sharp teeth, bigger than those of a lion. I worry about my young children and my dogs."
As residential areas expand further into the mountains, the habitat of the baboons becomes smaller. The animals therefore increasingly enter the built-up area in search of calorie-rich food. Encounters between humans and baboons thus more often become a source of conflict.
About six hundred baboons live on the Cape Peninsula. The municipality tries to drive the baboons back into the mountains with the help of baboon keepers. Armed with paintball guns, the keepers constantly chase the animals. But the baboons are fast and things regularly go wrong.
Two troops of each over sixty animals cause the municipality a great deal of nuisance. The municipality and wildlife management agencies therefore want to catch the animals and place them in an enclosed area on the Cape Peninsula. The fences have now been installed. The area is about the size of seven football fields. There are also wooden platforms where the baboons can rest.
"It is not ideal," says Gregg Oelofse, coastal management and nature manager at the municipality of Cape Town. "But we have two choices: euthanize these baboons or confine them. And we think we can give them a good life." Because a good life, they do not have now, says Oelofse. "When baboons die, we take X-rays. Almost all of them have buckshot in their bodies because frustrated citizens shoot at them. Also, all that junk full of calories and sugar they eat is bad for their health."
However, the proposal meets strong resistance. Where Oelofse sees a facility where the baboons can quietly spend their old age, opponents see a death camp. Residents who oppose the plan demonstrate every weekend at the fences. "They bring them there to die," says demonstrator Lucinda Bovill.
"They sterilize them so that the group eventually disappears. While this is their natural habitat. They were here first. We have to adapt and take responsibility. That way we can better secure our trash bins."
The demonstrators fear that the shelter location sets a precedent. "If the first relocations prove successful, the municipality could confine more baboons in the future," thinks demonstrator Lauren Wild, who stands with a stuffed baboon. "Ultimately, I am afraid that no baboon will remain." The municipality of Cape Town denies this and says that the hundreds of other baboons can simply stay.
Adam Welz, who found the baboons in his kitchen, also prefers another solution. With his own small nature conservation organization, the South Peninsula Nature Alliance, he advocates not for fences around the baboons but for a fence between the residential areas and the mountains. "Then the baboons keep their natural habitat and we have peace in our homes."
But according to Oelofse of the municipality of Cape Town, a hard reset is simply necessary. "It is an illusion to think that these troops of baboons lead a nice and wild life in nature. Confinement is the only option. I am not happy about it either."
The municipality is still waiting for the final permits for the capture operation but the expectation is that the first baboons will be caught next week.