Baboon Management Cape Town

Publicly available monthly reports were produced about the baboon management project by HWS from 2012-2020. These contain raiding activity and out of town records of the Cape Peninsula baboons, as well as a breakdown of hotline calls for the month, and updated monthly population figures of each troop. In addition to this, monthly, seasonal and daily trends of baboon behaviour are reported on.

To see our click on the Reports Archive button below.

September is traditionally the start of spring, however several cold and wet periods were still experienced this month.  Consequently, the southern sub-population of  managed baboons still showed much of the  winter trend in behaviour of sleeping close to town in the lower lying areas where they were more protected from the weather.  In the northern sub-population, however, the Constantia troops started spending more time on the wine farms, likely attracted by the sprouting of new growth on the vines.

This month most of the noteworthy baboon behaviour occurred in the northern sub-population.  SK11, which was relocated from the Slangkop Troop towards the end of August, spent the first half of the month investigating most of the northern troops to determine which would be most suitable for him to join.  In the second half of the month he paid most attention to the Zwaanswyk Troop, but  finally settled on the Tokai Troop.  By the end of the month he seemed to be largely accepted by the Tokai Troop.

Further north, there was considerable turmoil in the two Constantia Troops.  CT1 seemed to be undergoing a split with the two divisions ranging all over the wine farms.  The CT2 Troop was taken all over Constantia by MT14.  He was showing typical dispersal behaviour but was strangely taking his recently found small troop with him.  The CT2 Troop ranged extensively between Eagle’s Nest and Southern Cross Drive, and spent considerable periods in De Hel Nature Area.   MT14 disappeared on 18 September, and after that the CT2 Troop returned to foraging mostly on or above the wine farms.