Male baboon rescued on M5

Melanie Gosling

Environment Writer

IN the old days when a male baboon on Table Mountain reached sexual maturity, and the big males gave him a hard time, he simply headed off over the Cape Flats in search of females of his own.

All he had to face was a long walk – and perhaps a predator or two.

Today, a young primate feeling the same instinctual urge faces massive obstacles: vast expanses of concrete and tar, roads and fences, people and dogs – and usually a pursuing posse of conservation officials and policemen with guns.

This happened to a young male baboon which ventured down from the mountain slopes above Tokai and tried to cross the Cape Flats.

Known as a “dispersing male”, the baboon made it through Tokai and crossed the busy M3 freeway unharmed and ran into the southern suburbs. It managed to avoid any unpleasant encounters, and reached the M5 freeway.

This is where a local commuter with a dashcam video saw the animal near the Parkwood turnoff.

“I was just driving past and I saw this baboon run across the road in front of me, just on the bridge that goes over the railway line. Then I saw a police officer, with his pistol drawn, come running across the road after him. The last I could see was the policeman on the bridge, looking down at where the baboon had gone,” said the driver, who did not want to be named.

“Being an ex-policeman myself, I wondered why he had a gun drawn. If it was a criminal, yes, but a baboon that was running away? So I thought I would give the video clip to Baboon Matters and see what they thought.”

Kathy Kelly, of Baboon Matters, sent the video clip to the Cape Times, saying that the young male was “probably trying to follow historical migration routes towards Somerset West that have long since been cut off by urban sprawl”. “Can’t say I blame him – our baboons are being aggressively contained in an ever-shrinking range, and dispersing males, so vital for genetic spread, are generally seen as ‘problem animals’.”

Asked to comment, police spokesperson Andre Traut said it was not possible to offer a suitable response based on the video footage “as the officer in question could have had a reason for having his firearm in his hand”, adding that police were acquainted with wildlife legislation. But Johan van der Merwe, Mayoral committee member for Energy, Environmental and Spatial Planning, said police were there to help the “baboon rangers”. Baboons did not usually get as far as the M3, he said, let alone the M5, so the situation was “highly unusual”.

“Baboon rangers, assisted by local police, tracked the baboon, worried that he may run into humans who were not sympathetic to his quest. The aim of baboon rangers and the police was to capture the baboon. There was no intention by either the police or baboon rangers to kill the animal,” Van der Merwe said.

It was eventually darted by the city’s chief vet and released into the Plateau Road baboon troop in the deep south.

Last seen, he said, it was in good health, and parking off somewhere between the Plateau Road troop and the Smitswinkel troop.