Cape Town plans baboon relocation in bid to protect troops and residents
The task team said the baboons are relying on the urban environment for nutrition which is unnatural and not sustainable.
CAPE TOWN - The City of Cape Town’s baboon task management team has developed an action plan to remove four troops from urban areas.
The task team said the baboons are relying on the urban environment for nutrition which is unnatural and not sustainable.
The action plan is to ensure that no new troops splinter, maintaining a healthy number of the population.
Head of the City’s baboon task management team, Gregg Oelofse said: “They’re suffering all sorts of problems in that space and the people living in that space are equally having a difficult time so that’s the rationale for the removal, its looking to reset the situation so that we can move towards a healthy population of baboons that is manageable and is essentially as wild as we can keep them.”
Oelofse added that the plan is to protect the animals
“Very importantly is part of this process is we motivated in the action plan to the mayor that the city move quickly with the development of an urban wildlife bylaw because there are two very important forms of harm that are happening to baboons in our city, one is the physical harm to baboons but equally as harmful to baboons we find that a lot of people are actively feeding baboons in many of the suburbs," said Oelofse.