CT goes to court over baboons
2010-08-26 22:44
Cape Town - The City of Cape Town is heading to court in a bid to force nature conservation authorities to help control baboons on the Peninsula, mayor Dan Plato said on Thursday.
He said the city believed that the Western Cape provincial government and SA National Parks (SANParks) were jointly responsible for baboon management on the Peninsula and the funding this required.
This belief was supported by "strong legal opinion", he told a council meeting.
Despite this, SANParks, the province and the province's conservation arm, CapeNature, had refused to provide long-term funding for the baboon monitor programme.
"As a result of this stance, we are left with no other option but to seek legal redress," he said.
Monitor funding
The city had invited SANParks and the province to join its in seeking a declaratory order to assign mandates for baboon management.
"They have refused to do so, leaving us little option but to go it alone and seek a court ruling," Plato said.
The city is currently funding the monitor programme by itself.
The programme uses some 60 human monitors to keep baboons away from the city's urban edge, where they have been known to trash homes and intimidate residents.
Much of Cape Town borders on the largely unfenced Table Mountain National Park, where baboons roam freely.
Plato said baboons represented an iconic part of Cape Town's biodiversity heritage.
"To maintain a healthy population of Chacma baboons in the Cape Peninsula on a long-term, sustainable, basis is important," he said.
"We also recognise the importance of protecting our citizens from the increasingly daring and threatening behaviour of baboons that invade homes in search of food."
Plato said a percentage of income received at the gates of the Cape of Good Hope, Boulders and Silvermine entrances to the park should go towards managing the animals which crossed park boundaries.
- SAPA