A juvenile baboon from the Seaforth troop, with False Bay in the background. (Photo: Joyrene Kramer) 
Cape Town’s “baboon wars” rekindled recently when the “Cape Peninsula Baboon Management Joint Task Team” (a collaboration between the City of Cape Town, CapeNature and SANParks) announced a plan to “remove” four troops of highly habituated baboons.
Some feared that this was a euphemism for reintroducing bygone strategies of culling entire troops. “Removal”, however, could also mean translocation to a protected area or to a sanctuary (as happened in the case of “Kataza”).
Baboon advocates are generally suspicious of removal options, or indeed of any coercive form of management including the use of high pressure water pistols and paintball guns. They aspire instead to peaceful coexistence with baboons through prevention measures (notably baboon-proofing bins and houses, strategic electric fencing, hiring more baboon monitors), and incentivising baboons to remain above the urban edge (e.g. planting indigenous baboon-friendly vegetation, installing water points, building sleeping sites, etc).
Such proposals should be taken seriously, but none are a silver bullet. Raiding picnic sites, restaurants, shops, and kitchens (and stealing eggs from the endangered African penguin colony at Boulders Beach) are faster ways for baboons to get calories than foraging in the fynbos. And being smart, sentient animals, baboons have become adept at circumventing monitors, conducting lightning raids, and breaking into even baboon-proof houses (removing roof tiles, doors and windows).
In his recent defence of co-existence with baboons, Adam Cruise is correct to say that we need to take baboon culture seriously. But he does not go far enough. Taking baboon culture (or, more accurately, cultures) seriously requires us to recognise baboons’ capacity to develop a culture of raiding.
Removal
Baboon cultures, like human cultures, are not static. Only by raising the costs of raiding are baboons likely to be deterred from it. If baboon troops circumvent the best efforts of baboon monitors and learn to forage primarily in urban areas (as is the case for the Waterfall troop in Simonstown), removal becomes the only practical option.
Stefania Falcon disagrees, arguing that the proposed removals amount to “political expediency disguised as ecology”. Her discourse is revealing. Political considerations (“expediency”) are not something to be derided; they are integral to life in a democratic city. In a representative democracy, elected governments (such as the City of Cape Town) must weigh up competing claims on scarce resources. The demand that baboons are owed a higher duty of care is but one claim among many on the allocation of City resources.
In making their claim, baboon advocates usually come from an animal rights perspective (all animals should be treated as ends in themselves). City wildlife managers, by contrast, implicitly adopt a mix of utilitarian ethics (some animals can be harmed if it contributes to broader animal welfare) and environmental considerations (protecting endangered penguins trumps the foraging rights of baboons). The challenge for any ethical position on wild animal management in the context of a city is to bring it into dialogue with political ethics.
A promising attempt is Donaldson and Kymlicka’s book Zoopolis: A political theory of animal rights. They conceptualise wild animals in protected or natural areas as having rights equivalent to citizens of another country; as free to follow their own rules (including eating other animals). “Liminal” animals, like rats, urban foxes and baboons that live within human settlements (but not as part of the society), are similarly free, but only in respect of other liminal animals (i.e. urban foxes may hunt pigeons but not pets). In this theory, liminal animals have rights, but also obligations not to harm humans or their domestic animal companions.
Applied to Cape Town, a Zoopolis-type ethics would posit that baboons have a right to live a flourishing life in and around human settlements, but only if they comply with the obligation not to attack people or raid their homes. Just as a human thief faces consequences (fines, community service or imprisonment), a raiding baboon should face consequences.
What these consequences should be is an open question. Yes, baboons are fellow primates, but they are not human: they cannot be reasoned with, required to do community service or fined. They operate within a social context like we do, but theirs is a more Hobbesian world. Alpha males assert their dominance through violence, including killing the offspring of defeated males. Baboon cultures are inherently violent.
Sentience and sapience
Baboon sentience and sapience mean they are well aware of when they are trespassing in human spaces (adjusting their behaviour accordingly, for example, sneaking around houses, hiding from baboon monitors). Coercive techniques to protect humans against baboons, including removing repeat-raiders to an animal sanctuary, are defensible in this context.
Some argue that we should not use techniques against baboons that we would not use against humans. Yet human societies — including democratic ones — routinely use high powered water hoses, tear gas and rubber bullets to deter illegal behaviours in urban areas. The principle would probably rule out euthanasia (though the death penalty exists in many societies, sometimes even including for theft). It might also rule out life in an animal sanctuary (though this is hopefully a lot better than life in most human prisons).
In representative democracies, governments arbitrate between competing understandings of ethical practice. Two considerations are central to this politics in Cape Town: what do most affected citizens believe to be appropriate/ethical action towards baboons; and how many resources should be allocated to that end?
According to a recent representative survey of baboon-affected areas in the Southern Peninsula, most people supported the baboon monitor programme, were opposed to the euthanasia of “problem” baboons, and were tolerant of baboons in the neighbourhood but did not want them in their homes.
Regarding the costs, as of mid-2025, the City of Cape Town was spending R2.1-million a month on managing baboons in urban areas — that is about R50,000 per baboon per year.
There are good reasons for the City to allocate resources to managing baboons. Cape Town’s citizens want local baboons to be managed. Economically, baboons contribute to Cape Town’s tourism appeal and the natural environment. Baboon management creates jobs for monitors, helps protect baboons from hazards in urban areas (being hit by a car, shot by an irate citizen) as well as helping to protect human homes (and endangered African penguins).
But one can certainly ask whether, given this level of spending, the City (and SANParks) should fund additional (untested) interventions. One can also ask whether it is reasonable to demand an end to all coercive management given the risk to human homes and to baboons (which would become more likely to develop raiding cultures and face greater retaliation from people).
City Improvement Districts
Part of the solution might be for the City to continue with its current strategy and for baboon advocates to do the local, political, work required to set up City Improvement Districts in baboon-affected areas. Most of these areas are relatively affluent, and thus good candidates for the City Improvement District model. This is how the Zwaanswyk community in Tokai paid for their highly effective baboon-proof fence in 2012.
The City Improvement District model allows ratepayers, with the agreement of at least half of local businesses and 60% of residences, to set up demarcated districts with a democratic governance structure and agreed business plan. Additional rates/taxes are then levied on all households and businesses in the area and handed to the City Improvement District governing structure.
Falcon accuses the City of failing to adopt “participatory decision making” when it comes to baboon policy. But it is at the local level, in places most affected by baboons, that participatory decision making is most appropriate. Rather than petition the City of Cape Town and other authorities to fund her proposed projects, Falcon’s challenge would be to obtain the necessary buy-in and funding at the relevant local level. This will not be easy — political work never is. But such a solution would have the clear benefit of not placing any additional burdens on an already overstretched citywide budget.
In the meantime, the debate can, and should, continue over what to do with the four baboon troops. Given the unpopularity of euthanising even “problem” baboons, there is a strong political case for their removal to a protected area, or to a sanctuary if this proves impossible.
There is, however, no baboon sanctuary in the Western Cape, and the problem of costs remains relevant. Perhaps it is time for a further partnership model: for baboon advocacy groups and animal welfare organisations to partner with the City of Cape Town to develop and run a local baboon sanctuary? Done well, it could generate revenue, create jobs and enhance Cape Town’s international reputation. DM
Nicoli Nattrass is a professor of economics and co-director of the Institute for Communities and Wildlife (iCWild) at the University of Cape Town. iCWild Director Professor Justin O’Riain has been an advisor to the City of Cape Town on baboons. Nattrass is on the Baboon Advisory Group (BAG) as Esme Beamish's alternate (Beamish is the main member). However, Nattrass has pointed out that in the above piece, she is not writing in that capacity. She adds that she serves on the BAG as a specialist in human wildlife conflict and that she wrote this piece in her capacity as an academic, not as a BAG member.