– If you live somewhere where there are wild animals, you must learn to live with them, says Chad Cupido in Beauty Without Cruelty South Africa to Reuters.
Cape Town authorities are not convinced. Now they will move around 60 baboons permanently to a fenced area.
The plan has triggered a bitter battle on how the big city will handle the existence of the increasingly visible animals.
There are about 60 chacma baboons from two groups at Simon’s Town.
They are scheduled to be moved to a new Urban Wildlife Centre and kept there permanently.
The alternative is euthanising
Sue-Anne Norton lives in Simon’s Town and provides regular fruit to the baboons visiting her home.
– They are not livestock. You can’t put them in cages, she says to Reuters.
The move is presented by the authorities as an alternative to killing. Opponents, on the other hand, believe that permanent captivity is the wrong way to handle wild animals.
The baboons have become very accustomed to people over time. An adult male can be around one meter high and weigh up to 45 kilos.
In search of food, the baboons move into residential areas, rummage through garbage cans and get close to people and pets -they have also broken into homes, sometimes breaking windows to gain entry in search of food.
A resident related that baboons broke the bathroom window, destroyed a microwave, leaving faeces in the house.
Animal protectors have demonstrated outside the area where the new centre is to be located. They asked, among other things, that toy baboons be placed in homemade cages.
Cape Town authorities, for their part, believe that the current situation is bad for both humans and animals.
Baboons adapted to urban environments can become dependent on human food and end up more and more often in conflict with people.
6000 garbage cans
In Cape Town fences are being built to keep the animals away from the residential areas.
Animal protectors believe the problem is because the city has grown into the baboons’ habitats. At the same time, the number of baboons has Cape Peninsula increased from around 360 to close to 600.
