Cape Town — On August 12, 2024 , Joey, the alpha male of the troop of baboons that occup ies the area around the seaside village of Pringle Bay in the picturesque Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve, was shot and killed. He was one of four baboons purposely killed by residents in 2024.
Two baboons were killed as a result of multiple pellet gun internal injuries - one was pregnant and almost full-term.
Another baboon was seen being run over by a business owner in Pringle Bay.
These more recent deaths are the result of years of baboon mismanagement by the Overstrand Municipality (OM) after a compactum and Strategic Baboon Management Plan (SBMP) between the p rovincial go vernment, OM, and Cape Nature. The agreements were signed in February 2019 and a Strategic Baboon Management Plan was finalised in September 2019 .
The current OM Adaptive Baboon Management Plan was ushered in with a permit from Cape Nature but without robust scientific evaluation or a public participation process. The overarching aim of the municipality has been, and continues to be, to keep baboons out of the Pringle Bay through various “deviation processes” and herein lies the problem.
Urban creep
Baboons prefer to use low-lying areas to forage and prefer high-lying areas as sleep sites. Unfortunately, in Pringle Bay, a large portion of urban development is concentrated in the low-lying areas nestled between the coastline and the foot of mountains, coincides with the historical foraging areas of these baboon troops. Rampant housing development resulted in dramatic increases in human-baboon conflict.
Wildfires, and the reduction, fragmentation, and degradation of baboon habitat around Pringle Bay means that baboons lose the space and resources they need to survive. This too has increased the visibility of the baboons in the village. For some of the human residents, this has developed into a competition between themselves and the baboons - a situation which is affecting the well-being of all. Some residents are reportedly adopting cruel and often fatal methods to discourage the baboons from foraging in the village, leading to injury and death of the baboons despite t he OM environmental department being tasked to resolve the situation by ensur ing that the baboons never enter the village.
'Make the town unfavourable to baboons'
In order to keep the desperate baboon troop, about 20 individuals, out of the village, the OM, according to their management plan, is “to make the town unfavourable to the troop” and to “continuously annoy the troop while they are in town”.
In June 2020, the OM signed a contract with Human Wildlife Solutions (HWS) via various deviation approvals for the management of baboons at a sum of over R30-million. However, HWS made matters worse.
For starters, HWS already drew the ire of the public in Cape Town about their heavy-handed methods, which ultimately lost them the contract with the City of Cape Town Municipality.
In April 2024 the OM announced their Adaptive Baboon Management Plan for Pringle Bay where they use barely trained and poorly disciplined ‘eco-rangers’ for the provincial Expanded Public Works Program ( EPWP ), which offers short-term and medium-term work opportunities for those who are unemployed or under-skilled. The EPWP employees are armed with paint-ball markers, gel blasters, bird bangers, strobe lights and 'bakkie sakkies' or skid units, which are high-pressure water jets used to force the baboons out the village.
Apart from numerous incidences of injury and even death of baboons, many Pringle Bay residents are alarmed at the presence of these rangers moving throughout the village firing projectiles seemingly with abandon. According to a report compiled by primatologist, Jocelyn Mormile, on behalf of the EMS Foundation “the optics of HWS’ operations was noted to feel unsettlingly mismatched to the largely peaceful environment of the village” and “residents expressed great concern for the welfare of the troop and described the OM eco rangers using militaristic tactics to achieve their aim”.
No natural foraging
Some residents also voiced concern for the troops’ ability to nutritionally sustain themselves in the natural environment outside the village boundaries.
Two separate assessments on food and water availability raised concerns that there is not enough food and water in the outlying natural areas surrounding Pringle Bay.
In January 2024, a massive fire destroyed much of the mountain and coastal fynbos around Pringle Bay. Jenny Parsons, a plant scientist and microbiologist who did her MSc thesis on the baboons around Pringle Bay and conducted the food assessment in January 2025 , said that there is not enough food in the surrounding natural areas where the baboons normally spend 80% of their time. “ T he present monitoring approach of pushing the baboons deep into the burnt areas of the reserves is simply not going to provide enough foraging for the baboon troop to survive. The lack of food sources and fresh water is minimal at the moment,” Parsons said.
The next assessment focused on the lack of water availability. Microbiologist Dr. Martella du Preez found there was no water on the mountainsides outside the village. Du Preez said that the baboons are “held hostage” the whole day on the high slopes of the mountain. During her assessment, she saw the baboons trying to come down the mountain at the end of the day.
“ I witnessed how the monitors prevented the baboons from coming down and instead chased them back up the mountain,” Du Preez said. “They were kept there until dark when the monitors left. The baboons were forced to stay on the mountain until the next day.”
As a result, the starving baboons are desperate to get to food, which is easily accessible in the village at the houses with no baboon-proofing, in the form of food waste from bins that have not been baboon-proofed, and the equally unprotected municipal waste dump site at th e entrance of the village and in the well-watered gardens of residents. The baboons are also trying to overnight in the village and forage at night, which is highly unusual behaviour for baboons.
Human-on-human conflict
The prolonged presence of baboons is also causing a rift in the village, often with violent outcomes between the human residents. Members of those who are against the presence of baboons are attacking those who want better solutions. Liezl Smith, a Pringle Bay resident and who volunteers for the Kogelberg Villages Environmental Trustees ( KVET ), has had all four tyres of her motor vehicle slashed on two separate occasions and enamel paint was thrown all over her car and her driveway in December 2024 .
KVET, a registered non-profit, calls for a peaceful co-existence with baboons and advocates a non-invasive monitoring of baboon movements through the use of monitors during daylight hours that use whistles to alert residents of the presence of baboons. KVET educat es the public about baboon behavior, and baboon-proofing their houses and food waste. Unfortunately, there is not much support from the municipality for the organisation’s solutions.
Mayoral AWOL
The mayor of the Overstand Municipality, Annelie Rabie, was repeatedly asked to acknowledge what to many Pringle Bay residents is a crisis, but Rabie systematically declined to adequately address the situation.
Despite numerous requests, Mayor Rabie chose not to hold robust public consultation with all interested parties on the escalating human-on-human and human-on-baboon conflict in Pringle Bay. This is in direct contravention of the Overstrand Municipality Participation Policy to provide transparent, democratic, and accountable governance for communities and to encourage the involvement of community organisations.
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The EMS Foundation raised objections to the Adaptive Baboon Management Plan on the May 2, 2024. In the objection was noted the Overstrand Municipality’s decision not to engage with all stakeholders or with any of the organisations based in the Overstrand or nationally. Frustrated by the municipality’s continued spirit of non-engagement, on May 31, 2024, the EMS Foundation was forced to submit a Letter of Demand about the use of inhumane baboon management methods in Pringle Bay. That too was ignored.
In a direct letter in December 2024, Michele Pickover, Executive Director of the EMS Foundation reminded Mayor Rabie that: “ Pringle Bay is registered as a Conservancy and is part of the Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO Heritage Site. The Kogelberg is considered the heart of the Cape Floral Kingdom.The municipality, residents, visitors, property, and business owners have a critical responsibility to protect and preserve the flora and fauna within this pristine natural environment.”
KVET offered financial assistance to rebuild the dump site and make it baboon-proof. This time the Mayor respond ed , via email, simply declining the offer, adding "that she did not want a gun held to her head". In the meantime, the thirsty and hungry baboons continue to be harassed and killed, while the human residents’ frustration continues to escalate.
Dr Adam Cruise is an award-winning South African investigative journalist and academic who has conducted extensive research on the conservation and rural community development practices in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.
