ROOIELS, South Africa — Baboons aren’t exactly punctual, but Gavin Lundie still expected them to appear in the village around 9 a.m. “They’re coming!” his wife Leslie called. Members of the Rooiels baboon troop had begun to make their way down. Leslie made her way to the sliding doors on their patio and secured it with two shoelaces attached to a hook. She remained on the balcony and watched as the troop entered into the village a few properties away. The Lundies live in Rooiels,
a small, affluent village on False Bay, approximately 80 kilometers (50 miles) from Cape Town’s city center. The village, scattered from the coastal flats up the slopes of the Klein Hangklip mountain, is part of the Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve. The mountain’s cliff faces offer sleeping baboons (Papio ursinus) protection from leopards, their natural predator, but the sparse vegetation doesn’t offer enough for them to eat or drink. In contrast, the lower slopes, where the village has grown up, is still covered with dense fynbos scrub
on undeveloped plots, in gardens and along unpaved verges. The baboons forage on a range of flowers, seeds and berries in the warmer months; in winter, when the fynbos is dormant, the baboons eat kikuyu grass from lawns in the village. They also eat limpets in the intertidal zone, and the Rooiels River is a year-round source of freshwater. Why share a habitat? Joselyn Mormile, the conservation scientist who runs the City of Cape Town’s baboon program, did her Ph.D. research on human-baboon interface at
Rooiels. “Historically, they would have been coming [to Rooiels] anyway,” she told Mongabay. “One of the biggest issues is that we choose to live in the same place that baboons would naturally live, which are low-lying areas, areas next to the coast,” she added. In neighboring villages, staff with municipal baboon-monitoring programs fire paintball guns and blow vuvuzelas — the annoyingly loud horns made infamous at the 2010 World Cup hosted in South Africa — to drive baboons out. But in Rooiels, most residents are
opposed to having their troop monitored. As the baboons entered the village, they approached a truck parked next to a construction site. One of the construction workers knelt down next to the truck, picked up a few rocks, and threw them at the passing animals. Lundie very calmly explained to the worker: “You don’t have to throw rocks at them, they aren’t dangerous. They won’t harm you.” “But they stole my colleague’s lunch the other day,” the man protested. “So keep it in the truck,”
Lundie replied. “But they open the door.” “Then lock the door.” “But the doors can’t lock, and our boss told us that if they break the mirrors or the windows we have to pay.” Lundie explained to the man that the troop comes into the village in the mornings to forage, so the men only need to guard their vehicle’s doors for a few minutes while the animals passed through, then they would be fine. Realizing that though wild the troop was not a threat,
the construction workers fear turned into fascination. A minute later, he had swapped rocks for his phone and begun filming the primates as the rest of the troop crossed the road. A pathway to coexistence Across the village, residents secure their windows with store-bought or homemade baboon-proofing fixtures, keeping gaps smaller than 7 centimeters, less than 3 inches. Other devices limit how wide their doors can open, so that they don’t have to keep them completely closed when baboons are present. Some residents have steel
mesh sliding doors that still allow in lots of light and air when closed. All residents secure their waste using bins with locking mechanisms that the baboons can’t open. Many keep their bins behind locked doors except on trash collection day. Residents are also discouraged from having bird feeders outside their homes. They know that having fewer attractants on their properties makes it easier to shoo the baboons away. The Rooiels Baboon Coexistence Task team has drawn up a comprehensive document that includes guidelines for
dealing with baboons in homes. People are asked to remain calm, lift their arms, and firmly tell the baboon to leave, while allowing it to keep whatever it may already have in its hands and making sure that it has a clear exit path. Residents are also cautioned against panicking as this might cause the baboon to also panic and defecate. When residents encounter baboons outdoors, they’re encouraged to keep their food hidden. Mormile said even effective baboon management doesn’t eliminate negative encounters with the
primates. Baboon-proofing houses minimizes intrusions, and understanding how to behave when they do enter homes leads to less traumatic interactions. Kay Leresche, who has lived in Rooiels for more than 25 years, said a lot of negative attitudes toward baboons are formed when residents first move in. “Sometimes baboons get in and people get scared because they aren’t used to them and they don’t know that they don’t hurt you,” she said. “When I first came here, I had a cheap security gate and I
didn’t know they could get in. I had the whole troop in my house for a day. You have no idea the mess. Nothing was broken but there was mess everywhere, all over the house. It was absolutely a nightmare,” she said. One day more recently, Leresche forgot to close a window or door and she found a juvenile baboon poking around her freezer. “I leaned across him, picked up a piece of fruit, gave him the apple. Then said ‘Now, come on out!’ And
off he went,” she said. Jaco Grobler, another long-term resident, said there are two types of residents: the huggers, and the non-huggers. “I love baboons, but you cannot accommodate the baboons to the nth degree,” he said. “There needs to be a strong message. Don’t allow them to come onto your property, onto your car. Don’t take pictures of them. They need to be scared of humans. And by that, I don’t say catapult them, paintball them, whatever the case may be … If a
baboon gets onto your house, chase him and he will leave.”
Rooiels, South Africa, baboons, human-baboon coexistence, Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve, False Bay, Klein Hangklip, City of Cape Town baboon program, Rooiels Baboon Coexistence Task team