The result is a \u201cwicked problem\u201d, said the 2025 Cape baboon management action plan. \u201cNo single solution can satisfy all parties or resolve the conflict in a final, definitive manner,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n
![\"Baboons](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Baboons_Loop_1--cde8ce80-692c-4383-b7d7-a8b953b6666c-5.0.0000000.jpg\")
Baboons in Cape Town<\/p>\n
Most of Cape Town\u2019s mountains are covered by the 25,000-hectare (61,750-acre) Table Mountain national park<\/a>. However, the park is fragmented. The chacma baboons prefer to forage on low-lying land, much of which has been consumed by the city, whose population has grown 65%<\/a> to 4.8 million from 2001 to 2022.<\/p>\n The number of baboons, which don\u2019t have natural predators on the Cape Peninsula, has increased at a similar rate \u2013 from about 360 in 10 troops at the turn of the century to more than 600 in 17 troops in 2024, according to action plan data.<\/p>\n As many troops have become accustomed to foraging for calorific human food, more baboons have been shot, run over by cars, mauled by dogs or electrocuted. In 2013, four baboons died from human-related causes, according to an annual official baboon census<\/a>. In 2024, it was 33.<\/p>\n For animal rights activists, residents should be responsible for coexisting with baboons, by locking up bins, securing doors and windows and training their dogs not to attack the animals.<\/p>\n Lynda Silk, a healer and activist, who educates people about living alongside nature, wants more accountability. \u201cThere\u2019s been no successful prosecution for a person shooting a baboon,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Lynda Silk, seen here on the edge of Da Gama Park, believes coexistence with the primates is possible.<\/p>\n For Tom Cohen, an American journalist who retired to Cape Town in 2019, peaceful urban coexistence is impossible. He described the two troops that frequent Simon\u2019s Town as \u201chopelessly habituated and dependent on human food and settlements to survive,\u201d adding: \u201cThey\u2019re not wild baboons.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite Cohen\u2019s efforts to baboon-proof his home, in February 2025, they smashed a bathroom window to get in, breaking a microwave and leaving faeces. \u201cThe smell [of baboons] lingers, I can tell you that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u2018They\u2019re not wild baboons\u2019: Simon\u2019s Town resident Tom Cohen.<\/p>\n The three layers of government have agreed to build fences to keep baboons out of some areas and enforce a new bylaw with a \u201czero tolerance\u201d approach to harming the primates.<\/p>\n In Simon\u2019s Town, a fence has been deemed unworkable owing to the topography. So authorities have proposed moving the two troops to a sanctuary later this year. Euthanasia, which is anathema to animal rights activists, is to remain a last resort.<\/p>\n