Cape Town baboons.

The city council is considering allocating nearly R1 million for the remaining nine months of the current financial year to manage the baboon population in the Cape peninsula. The money will be used to monitor the three baboon troops north of the Good Hope gate at Slangkop, Da Gama and Groot Olifantsbos, as well as one of the Tokai troops, according to a city council press release.

An estimated 350 Chacma baboons live on Table Mountain and cheek-by-jowl with residents in the wealthy coastal suburbs. However this close contact with humans, together with the availability of food, has emboldened the monkeys to the point where they have started breaking into houses and causing trouble. This has in turn caused a decline in numbers as angry residents have started shooting or poisoning them or running them over in retaliation, at the rate of about 15-18 a year.

In 2006 the city created a task force to patrol the affected areas but it has had a limited impact due to lack of money.