At the edge of Da Gama Park, where suburb meets the mountain, Cape Town’s baboons have caused conflict, with a furious debate raging over whether the monkeys can coexist with humans or whether they should be kept away.
On Monday, Cape Town’s city council has said it will “imminently” round up two baboon troops coming into repeated conflict with residents. The animals will be sterilized and permanently moved to a newly constructed sanctuary.
The plan has been fiercely criticized by animal rights activists, who say the monkeys should remain roaming freely, and that less destructive options have not been properly considered, according to The Guardian.
Cape Town’s baboon problem has been brewing since the 2000s, after the city stopped culling troops in the late 1990s after pressure from the public. But in the past two years it has reached boiling point.
A 2025 census found that the population had grown by a third since 2000, from 360 baboons to 493, now living in 12 managed troops.
As a result of the population boom, troops of chacma baboons on the city’s peninsula regularly rip off roof sheeting, sneak into unlocked cars and raid food pantries.
Some monkeys are now staying up late into the night to break into homes in Simon’s Town and nab snacks from convenience stores. Residents can no longer barbecue or host garden parties for fear of the marauding baboons.
“It’s depreciated property values because it’s hard to sell a house when it’s covered in baboon feces and paw prints, and you know they’re coming every day,” said Justin O’Riain, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Cape Town who has long studied the local baboons.
Cape Town’s geography is partially to blame. Much of the problem is confined to the Cape Peninsula, a narrow sliver of land stretching from the city center to Cape Point.
Here, baboons are boxed in between the steep, protected area of Table Mountain national park and the sprawling urban development that stretches to the Atlantic Ocean.
“The underlying issue is that baboons will seek low-lying land. That is their natural drive – it’s better access to water and more productive vegetation,” said Joselyn Mormile, who leads the Cape Baboon Partnership (CBP), a nonprofit organization that works with the city and local conservation authorities to manage the baboons.
“But throughout the peninsula, we’ve developed most of those places. It’s a constant battle between the two,” she noted.
