A family group of baboons was suspected to have spent the night in Pollsmoor prison after they broke away from the main Tokai troop and roamed across various Cape Town suburbs.
After leaving the forest earlier, the group headed out east across the Cape Flats towards Zeekoevlei on Monday, their presence creating chaos in some human communities along the way.
The baboons attracted a big crowd of curious onlookers, particularly when they arrived at Cafda village between Grassy Park and Retreat around midday on Monday, and police had their hands full trying to control the excited humans.
Some residents chased and hit the baboons when they climbed onto their roofs, and others shouted and screamed at the animals as they ran, one eye-witness reported.
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Police tried to create a safe corridor behind the big male baboon so that the others would follow it and so they could herd them all towards safety, but as soon as the baboons started moving, the crowd surged forward towards them again.
"It was complete chaos, with the police shouting at the people," the eye-witness said.
The breakaway movement of such a large group of baboons is highly unusual and a first for baboon management efforts on the Peninsula in recent years, say conservationists.
Normally, it is only newly matured young males that go "walkabout", looking for a new troop to join, after being forced from the home troop by the dominant alpha male.
"This is very, very unusual," said baboon conservationist Jenni Trethowan, who manages the baboon monitors who try to keep the baboons out of urban areas and who have been battling to control the group.
Trying to get them back to the forest was likely to be "a hell of a mission", she conceded on Monday, "And of course the rain isn't helping!" she added.
The group of about nine or 10 baboons, led by a mature male and including females and juveniles and one infant, left the Tokai troop at the weekend and headed east, reaching Zeekoevlei after passing Pollsmoor prison and schools in Bergvliet.
On Monday, baboon monitors and police battled in vain to herd them back in the direction of the mountain from the Zeekoevlei area.
Trethowan said they left the baboons around 7pm on Monday night, after they jumped into Pollsmoor prison and it became "very dark". It was requested that the prison authorities left them there until Tuesday morning, when attempts would be made to herd them back to the forest.
Trethowan said the breakaway group had "been moving away from the forest very strongly".
Additional reporting by Ella Smook
- This article was originally published on page 3 of Cape Argus on July 08, 2008
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