Baboons in Kommetjie have ‘gate crashed’ a pre-school for three consecutive days, which resulted in a ‘upset and traumatised’ girl who refused to part with her lunch, Cape {town} Etc reports.
Stella New, Kommetjie Eco Pre-Primary principal, stated that it was not a new occurrence as they had baboons ‘in and out of the property’ over the years, but that last week they became frequent visitors at the pre-school.
New has been with the pre-primary school for 29 years.
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‘The baboons were in the playground several times last week and walked right into the classroom where the little kids were having their lunch. We have taught them to drop their food and get to the nearest adult,’ said New.
‘The baboon, a big male, came into the classroom and sat down, peeled and ate a naartjie and went into the kitchen where he stole a 2kg bag of sugar, but they managed to chase him out. The children are only three years old and one girl was holding on to her lunch box and she was very upset, but we managed to calm her down,’ New added.
New said that she doesn’t think the baboons ‘will injure us in any way’ unless they are cornered, but that the children tend to get traumatised by the experience, especially if they ‘had traumatic experiences at home’, as reported by IOL.
‘The baboons are so quiet, the teachers look out one door for them and they sneak in by another door,’ said New.
‘We are teaching the children how to live with baboons so when they are on the property we say “our friends are around” but we want to teach them not to panic.’
New added that they have never had ‘a serious incident’ and there has always been one baboon at a time.
To address the situation, the City of Cape Town and Cape of Good Hope SPCA have directed enquiries to the Cape Peninsula Baboon Management Joint Task Team.
The task team said that the NCC Environmental Services is being contracted by the City to provide baboon ranger services to keep baboons out of the urban area, that includes Kommetjie.
However, they are not able to ‘operate on private property’.
In July, a task team that consisted of representatives from SANParks, CapeNature and the City called on communities from baboon-affected areas, to ‘nominate representatives’ to serve on the Cape Peninsula Baboon Advisory Group.
Organisations from the South Peninsula with a ‘direct interest in baboon management’ were also involved with the advisory group.
The task team have stated that they have received around 120 nomination forms and were in the process of processing the applications.
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