....it's now unfortunately one of the only truly wild animals regularly seen and (more often) heard when exploring the hills and mountains of South Africa. Until you get used to the sound it can be rather alarming to be hiking in the peace and quiet and suddenly think you hear a vicious dog barking. You look around to see where the sound is coming from and see a silhouette at the peak and realise it's a baboon trying to intimidate you and discourage your progress towards their territory. After a few times you realise they are more scared of you than you are of them and invariably when you reach the summit they have all disappeared. We often see the damage they cause by digging up plants and bulbs for food, often taking a bite and wastefully throwing the rest away. A Richtersveld Park Ranger told us he fears for the survival of the beautiful and rare Amaryllis paradsicola due to baboon damage.
Anyway, having seriously digressed, I was asked by Phil Hughes to start this thread as he had a really strange encounter with a Chacma Baboon at work this week!
Watch this space......
Chris Rodgerson- Sheffield UK BCSS 27098
See www.conophytum.com for ca.4000 photos and growing info on Conophytum, Crassula & Adromischus.
This is an odd but true story. I recently came across a Taxidermy specimen of a Chacma Baboon, with all it's DEFRA paperwork, showing it had left South Africa in 2013 headed to Hungary. It was sold not long after to a buyer in the U.K.who collects taxidermy monkeys (it takes all sorts, as we know). It was quite a well done specimen (on CITES least threatened list), but had some appalling stitching, upon further examination I could see it had been mucked about with, and inside the chest cavity, under all kinds of odd 'packing' I found a dried up Anacampseros alstonii, and two bits of what I think are Euphorbia of some sort. For a few reasons I am unable as yet to post up any pictures, which I hoped to do. These are large beasts, and as the title of the thread suggests, there is a lot of room in a Chacma Baboon.....................
I find it surprising that no one has commented on what looks like the use of a dead baboon being used as a vehicle to smuggle plants. It makes me wonder what other methods may be taken advantage of?
Chris Rodgerson- Sheffield UK BCSS 27098
See www.conophytum.com for ca.4000 photos and growing info on Conophytum, Crassula & Adromischus.
Seems odd that the plants were still there. Did they fail to reach the person there way sent for? Or maybe there were a lot of plants in there, and a few were missed?
Using a dead baboon as a mule is certainly a trick I haven't come across before.
