Animals in the Western Cape South Africa

The relationships between human and other animal species will forever be contested; a contest for space, nutrition, power, freedom. In South Africa the proximity of wildlife to human settlements is greater than anywhere in Europe, where many millennia of human domination has left the landscape bereft and empty of the larger mammals. But the accommodation between animals and humans remains uneasy – and as a result of the growing competition the relationships and co-operation between animals and members of their own species is also contested. Zorro the hippomotamus escaped from a ‘reserve’ near Cape Town to escape bullying and attacks from his father. Perhaps his father felt it was time for the adolescent to leave home, but there’s nowhere far enough away to go in a game park. Zorro somehow managed to escape and found a more peaceful home in one of the City’s sewage farm, where he gives the impression of bliss. He reigns supreme in a kingdom of shit devoid of all other hippos. But he will have to be re-homed eventually into one of the proliferating number of game parks, all in search of a hippo.

Amongst the lizards, too, things have got difficult. One of the more colourful chameleon lizards has developed a transvestite strain. These are adolescent males (again!) who don the colouring of the females of the species in the hope of avoiding attacks and evictions by the dominant males. This strategy seems to be working and the transvestite lizards are scoring with the females before the typically stupid males realise what’s going on. As a result, the selfish genetic adaptation that allowed them to take on female colouring seems for the moment to be prospering.

But, as far as humans are concerned, our most complex mythical and practical relationships are with big cats and with the higher primates. Baboons are notoriously territorial and aggressive apes and continue to resist human invasion of their territory long after the roads and houses have been built and the people have moved in. They keep a watchful gaze from a distance and mount guerrilla attacks when they can, both in defence of their territory, causing as much mayhem as possible, but also in search of relatively easily accessible food. As well as urinating and defecating on beds and cushions, where presumably the human scent is strongest, they also steal fruit, vegetable and most other edibles. An avocado from a salad bowl is a good deal less effort, after all, than climbing all those trees. And we humans are inadequate protectors of our abundant food supplies. Unlike the transvestite lizards, this is a learnt adaptation and undoubtedly a functional one. Many groups of birds and animals are losing their fear of humans – squirrels and pigeons in North London for example.

So, once battle with the baboons is joined, fear must be deployed. Many baboons that live near humans bear the scars. A troop living in Pringle Bay near Cape Town had broken fingers, tails, hands and legs. Many other injuries had been terminal. Some injuries have been gained in fights with other baboons, motivated either by sexual competition or by an attempt to upset the established hierarchy, the former being a particularly irritating example of the latter from the point of view of the alpha male. Others have been attacked by humans, hit with stones from catapults, shot at and run over by cars, not always accidentally. Some have been attacked by man’s most faithful friends, dogs. They survive despite their disabilities, by compensating in other physical ways and by sticking with the pack.

But one human couple in Pringle Bay have come to some kind of accommodation with the baboons. Kate Jagoe-Davis is an artist who is also a paraplegic and a continuous wheelchair user. The baboons are much less aggressive to her, in part because they are less aggressive towards women: apparently they find the smell of testosterone particularly annoying. But the baboons have gone further and made friends with her, playing with her bangles, sitting on her knee and even grooming her hair. One young mother even brings her newborn to show her. They remain wary of her partner, Brian, meanwhile. He occasionally has to adopt an assertive male stance, either standing his ground in stand offs with the baboon bosses or seeing them off the premises with shows of aggression. This bizarre accommodation leads to confusion all round and even this benign human couple trying to come to terms with their baboon neighbours will more likely than not come unstuck. It will end in tears, because the baboons will eventually call Brian’s bluff. A show of aggression will not be enough.