By John Yeld and Natasha Prince
Kommetjie junior school children have to eat their sandwiches in their classrooms because the local baboon troop has taken to raiding the school grounds in search of easy pickings during the absence of baboon monitors.
On Thursday a baboon jumped on to the back of a five-year-old in the playground, severely traumatising her. And many of her schoolmates are said to be terrified.
The baboon troops in the Peninsula's "Deep South" have taken full advantage of the lack of monitors who were taken off the job after funding ran out at the end of last month.
Continues Below ↓
| A baboon jumped on to the back of a five-year-old in the playground |
The city council has agreed to provide bridging funding for the monitors of R120 000 a month until the end of the financial year, but the monitors will not be back on the beat until the contract with their management company has been signed .
Julia Wood, manager of the city's nature conservation department, said today that she hoped the issue would be finalised "within the next couple of days".
"The city is going to come to the party. We just need to sort out the approval and procurement procedures," she said.
Kommetjie teacher Duncan Duffett said a troop of up to 40 baboons had been visiting the school this week and that from today pupils would be kept in the classrooms for the first few minutes of the break so they could eat their sandwiches in peace.
"We've had four days of this now. The baboons are out of control and, especially at break time, it's just chaos.
| The city council has agreed to provide bridging funding for the monitors of R120 000 a month |
"We're doing what we can, emptying all the bins and putting in only baboon-proof bins and so on, but some of the kids are very scared. It would be just great if there were monitors."
At the other end of the Peninsula, Bart, the dispersing male baboon from Tokai, is still evading his would-be captors.
- This article was originally published on page 1 of Cape Argus on October 10, 2008
|
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Digg
Delicious
Newsvine
Facebook
muti
Twitter
