Cape Town plans to relocate two baboon troops from Simon’s Town

Cape Town authorities plan to capture two chacma baboon troops that range near Simon’s Town, a suburb on the Cape Peninsula in South Africa.

The 44-member Waterfall troop and the smaller Seaforth troop have repeatedly entered homes and other urban areas in search of food.

The troops would be moved to separate enclosures and kept there for life, rather than released elsewhere in the wild.

Officials call the move a “hard reset” after decades of interventions and say managing baboons has become too costly as their numbers have grown.

The peninsula’s baboon population rose from about 360 in 2000 to about 600 in 2025, according to the management plan.

The wider changes include a new fence in the northern Cape Peninsula and 6,000 baboon-proof bins, while authorities say baboons will not be allowed to move into the areas the two troops now use.

Some experts question whether permanently removing the troops is a convincing solution, even though they agree baboons should be kept out of urban areas.