Baboons. These nasty vermin of the primate world are once again making the news in Johannesburg, South Africa. Baboons have long been a nuisance in the city, and a grocery list of methods to control them has been implemented unsuccessfully over the years.
The latest idea to handle these marauding, fruit tree destroying, front yard defecating, trash can looting, kitchen invading, elderly scaring, pet fighting, ammonia laden, poop throwing, public urinating and dog-sized chimp wannabes comes from Tali Hoffman, a zoology student from the University of Cape Town. Hoffman, in her doctoral thesis, proposed to give the baboons land.
She came to this revolutionary and brilliant solution by studying the home range size, habitat preferences, daily patterns and diets of nine troops of baboons in the Peninsula in 2007. She found that baboons enjoy eating human food scraps found in trashcans and fruit from city grown trees.
“These must not be made accessible to them, so that they stop coming into human areas,” she told news24.com.
Let me see…how do I put this delicately? Hmmmm, oh, here… I have it… That’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever read. What kind of plan is get rid of everything in the city baboons like and provide them with some choice real estate outside city limits? And Hoffman is going to receive a doctorate in zoology for coming up with this idea? What kind of zoology department is the University of Cape Town running over there? Is a baboon on the board or something?
What do you think, Outdoor Life readers? Am I being too harsh? Or does Hoffman’s idea have merit? Comment below!
Want to read more about baboons? Of course you do. Check out South African Man Shoots Attacking Baboon, Gets Charged With ‘Harming an Animal’ and Drunken Baboons Attack!
Photo: derekkeats