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Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Baboons as Car Thieves! Cape Town, South Africa


Ok, there are some rediculous posts out there. But as many of you know, I am intereested in the hsitory of car theft. So this story had a very different twist. I found this news in the November, 2010, Issue of Road & Track, p. 108.:

"The South African Press Association reports that wild primates along the coast near Cape Town have learned to target unlocked cars once the owners are out of sight. Food and cameras are favorite targets, though one can only guess what they will do with the latter.

How do baboons recognize whcih cars are left unlocked? Apparently they listen for the characteristic tweet tweet of remote locking systems -- and choose the other ones."
Primate inebriates descend on South African vineyards
Posted by Graham_Land in Weird & Wonderful, Wildlife & Flora, 31 Aug 2010, 2

photo by Mark Somerville (Spakman on Flickr CC)
Last month it was reported in the Telegraph how clever baboons in South Africa have learned to recognize the door-locking signal ‘beep’ before deciding whether or not to break into cars parked at a popular tourist spot in Cape Town.
This month the buzz is that baboons are raiding the vineyards of Cape Town’s wine country on a daily basis and entering the city’s exclusive suburbs in search of easy pickings.
Sometimes the baboons even gorge themselves on grapes that have partially fermented in the sun and become intoxicated.
Of course this is a struggle between primates – and the baboons were there first:
Where there’s a mountain, there’s a baboon. As we take up more and more of their land, the conflict increases.
–Justin O’Riain of the Baboon Research Unit at the University of Cape Town
Residents used to be allowed to shoot baboons, but 10 years ago they were awarded protected status and now farmers and other hapless humans are having difficulties staving off the raiding troops.
Read more about the problem of baboons raiders in the following Telegraph article:
Drunk baboons plague Cape Town’s exclusive suburbs

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