Male, sexist and drunk, the unruly group were every restaurant owner’s nightmare.

“I tried to get rid of them, but they were having a party, eating all my bread, bananas and avocados and swigging bottles of wine they had taken out of the refrigerator,” said Carol White, who runs the Camel Rock restaurant in the quiet village of Scarborough near Cape Point, South Africa, at the very tip of the continent.

“They ignore women completely and only cleared off when one of my male staff came,” she added.

Mrs White was not talking about a mob of South African rugby supporters, notorious even in their homeland for their boorish manners, but a group of endangered Chacma baboons. Troops of the animals, led by burly alpha males, have been terrorising the small community on the Atlantic side of the Cape Point nature reserve — one of the most picturesque and usually tranquil areas in South Africa.

Stripped of their natural fear of humans by tourists who give them bananas and other food in defiance of local regulations, the baboons have formed themselves into raiding parties and frequently descend on the village.

“They have realised that this is much easier than finding food in their natural habitat. They are very clever animals and have learnt how to open windows and fridges. We are easy pickings,” Mrs White said.

Over the past few months, the baboons have burgled houses, sometimes by pushing their babies through security bars and getting them to open a window latch. They have also raided the only store in the town and have

intimidated inhabitants, particularly women. A few weeks ago they fought a pitched battle with a group of pet dogs — most of which came off worse — further terrifying residents.

“The alpha males have no respect at all for women. It is an instinct thing,” said Adele Coetzee, whose home was raided a few months ago. “I heard shuffling upstairs and thought it was my boyfriend. They came in through a bedroom window but then went straight down into the kitchen. They trashed the place.”

The animals have also triggered divisions within the community between those who regard them as a menace that needs to be controlled and “baboon-huggers”, who have set up a wildlife organisation to protect what they call these “incredible creatures”.

“Perhaps through better understanding will come an acceptance and tolerance that will enable primates to learn to live alongside each other in harmony. The aim is to bridge the gap between the wild world of the baboons and the civilised world of their human cousins,” the home page of a local website, Baboon Matters, says.

Doris de Swardt, who runs the only shop in Scarborough, a hole-in-the-wall stall called the Mickey Mouse Trap, is having none of it. Since she was raided by a troop, she has kept a hockey stick and a catapult alongside her piles of crisps, chocolates and home-made cakes.

“They stole all my muffins last time and they are completely fearless,” she said. “They are a total menace . . . these people who lobby for them don’t understand they are wild animals and need to be confined to the wild. This has come about because of contact with humans.”

Residents have complained to the local authorities, who forbid the shooting of wild animals, but they say that little has been done.

“They are overstretched, and this is not a priority for them. If the whole reserve had been run properly, tourists would never have been allowed to feed them in the first place, and this would never have happened,” Peter Kirsch, an opponent of the baboons’ presence, said.

“I do not want to kill baboons, I just want them to keep out of my house and those of my neighbours,” he said, adding that he was considering buying a blowpipe and poisoned darts from the local market to get round the ban on killing them. Dr Kirsch accused the pro-baboon lobby of making matters worse by organising walks with the baboons during which people can observe them properly.

“The problem is that they walk behind them, so they make humans subservient, and the message is not lost on the alpha males . . . those baboon-huggers should come and look at the mess they made on my Persian carpet. Baboon poo is no joke. It is full of communicable diseases. They are a health hazard.”

Naughty beasts

— Elephants from the Ang Lue Nai wildlife sanctuary in eastern Thailand turned to crime in 2003. Large numbers blocked roads and used their trunks to steal sugar cane from lorries

— Colin Jones, a builder, hired a bodyguard this year after being attacked by seagulls in Brighton. Steve Jackow followed him wearing a fluorescent bib and a referee’s whistle

— Chippy, a male chimpanzee, pictured, was exposed in 2001 as the perpetrator of heavy-breathing phone calls after staff at Blair Drummond Safari Park, in Stirlingshire, recognised his shriek. He had stolen a keeper’s phone and learnt to operate the redial button

— Lewis, a pet cat, was placed under house arrest in Connecticut last year after attacking an Avon lady. He was ordered to stay indoors for the rest of his life

Source: Times archives

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