Thread: Scary if these get hold of you.

Scarey indeed.

Me, my wife and my sister were confronted by a very large male baboon in the kitchen of a holiday rental, in Scarborough on the Cape Peninsula. It entered the kitchen through the back door with no apparent fear, ran right up to my sister and bared those teeth in an incredibly aggressive manner. When she understandably recoiled, he grabbed a loaf off the bench then tried to pull the rubbish bin out from under the counter. I yelled and ran towards it with my best come on have a go if you’re hard enough, and the baboon pulled back to the doorway and challenged me back.

Whereupon a small African man appeared out of nowhere behind the baboon with a knobkerrie, and mullared the fucking thing right across the back of the head. The baboon was stunned, dropped the bread and staggered up the path out of sight.

The South Africans here will probably know about the Peninsula baboons, and how for years they were protected but have become utterly fearless, and a real problem. Tourists would feed them from their cars, and they became increasingly emboldened. They raided the local houses constantly, killed dogs and have attacked humans. They were informally controlled by local Africans paid for by residents, basically fighting them with sticks, but killing them was forbidden. It all got very political and I don’t know what happened to them in the end.

I’ve got another baboon story that you wouldn’t believe!