by Chris Marais
“I may have been eating a chop at the time.”
For some reason, I thought this was the funniest thing I’d heard all day. When you’ve been in a world of torture, mutilation, penguin barbecues and forced removals (OK, there was also the little matter of Edgar Wallace’s drugged-up walkabout in the clinic), the story of Chops is welcome wit.
Inside the curio shop at the lodge, full of penguin tsatskes, I met Bob the Cat. Bob’s job was to comfort tourists who were missing their own cats back home. For this he received more Christmas cards than anyone else in town. But they were feeding him too much bacon under the table at breakfast, and his kidneys were giving him hell.
Still on the penguin trail, we drove out to Fish Hoek to see Hendrik ‘Van the Penguin Man’ van der Merwe. His wife had just passed away, but he was still willing to receive us in his little flat over Jimmy’s Sports Shop. When he’d retired from the Navy, Van found that he was bored.
“One day I saw some people throwing stones at a penguin on the beach. I chased them off, threw a shirt over the injured bird and took it to a vet. Its leg was broken. From that day, I was a part of the penguin world. I put on a uniform again and went to work every day, looking after the penguins.”
Van became world famous as the protector of the penguins on Boulders Beach.
“I had one penguin that always used to come along next to me, wherever I went,” he said. “One day I was talking to a little girl and I told the penguin to take her for a walk. The penguin took her hand, very gently, and off they strolled down the beach. After about 100 metres, he turned around and brought her back.”
“I even told a penguin to peck someone once,” he said, with a bashful grin. “And it did.”
He showed us his ‘penguin scars’.
“Here, look. One penguin even managed to break my wrist bone. He karate-chopped me with a flipper.” His upper torso was full of peck scars, where anxious, usually oil-polluted penguins had attacked him in pure panic while he was busy rescuing them.
Once he rescued 150 penguins after an oil spill, cleaned them up at his home and drove them off to the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds in his Toyota Corolla.
“Every time I changed gears, I had to move a penguin out of the way. They were under my brake pedals, on my shoulders and staring out of all the windows. Basically giving the world a helluva show.”
National Parks took over the Boulders Beach area and Van found himself being eased out of the job he had created.
“I didn’t need a degree to tell when a penguin was sick or well. I also knew just how to pick them up. They would just relax in my arms,” he said. “I loved my years at Boulders. I still remember things like how the penguins ran up the beach one day when a killer whale came in close. I admire the fact that they mate for life – did you know that a penguin pines away if its partner dies?”
Driving back to Simon’s Town late that afternoon, we landed smack-dab in the middle of a traffic jam of enraptured motorists. They were all looking out at the bay, where a pod of whales had just arrived. And this time, there was no harpoon about to be unleashed …
Chapter 12: Cape Point
Famous Baboons
He sits on the surfboard gazing out at the Atlantic Ocean near Cape Point, the south-easter blowing his hair back into a fashionable wave that billows around a thoughtful face. What kind of a swell is happening out there today? What’s the dreaded undertow going to be like? How about the meaning of the universe? Where does that puzzling, enticing aroma of chocolate and hazelnut come from? And what is this itch between my toes?
This is Surfer Boss Baboon, one of the Cape Point Chacma gang, some of the smartest primates in existence. Right now, they have infiltrated a convoy of young human surfers and are casing the joint, so to speak. Sitting on VW Beetles, surfboard racks and rocks, strolling among the boys in baggies and their adoring girlfriends, this baboon troop resembles a squad of officious Customs men, clad in grey, eyes missing nothing, constantly assessing each detail of the line of cars and their contents. Looking for a gap.
Ah ha. One thoughtless youngster, possibly a little high on life and Indian hemp, leaves his Beetle unattended for a few seconds. That’s all Surfer Boss Baboon and his First Mate need. Quick as striking snakes (don’t say “snake” too loudly around a baboon) they dart into the little car and puff themselves up to twice their size, baring their fangs and barking loud warnings to the world at large.
With the astounded surfers at bay, standing around the vehicle saying things like “Radical” and “Shoo-wah” and “What the fuuuh” and “Aah man”, the two fearless raiders grab what they came for and make a break for it. First Mate enjoys a full loaf of sliced whole-wheat bread in a plastic bag by the seaside. Surfer Boss has a jar of tasty Nutella chocolate ’n hazelnut mix (for the munchies, of course), deftly removes the screw-top lid and slurps the lot down as he sits on the rocks above the road.
“Now if only they used more of their brain cells and got together,” said Jules as we watched this little interplay from a safe distance, “they could have made a whole bunch of sandwiches and had a proper picnic.”
In our years of travel together, Jules and I had seen many a baboon at play – it could also have been work – around the country.
One Sunday morning some years before, we were driving through the farming backwaters of the Waterberg in Limpopo Province. This was also the area where the great writer Eugene Marais came to study baboons just after World War I. A breathless silence hung in the air – the tractors and harvesters were stilled, the farmers were at worship and the sandy roads were empty.
Then, as we passed the mealie fields of a certain farm, we saw waves of movement and heard muffled barks followed by the cracking of cob from stem. The baboons of the Waterberg were busy raiding the farmer’s harvest while he and his family were singing hymns in church.
I can lay a faint claim to having been raised by a baboon during one stage of my life. Her name was Ounooi (loosely translated as ‘Old Maid’) and she lived in a huge syringa tree outside our home in Pretoria. Ounooi was connected to the base of the tree by a long length of chain, just to make sure she didn’t run off and throw her name away. The old girl loved me to bits (sometimes in an uncomfortably literal sense), and when I was four she used to cuddle me on sad days, solicitously picking nits and stuff out of my hair. However, when my Mom approached, Ounooi would fly into all manner of tantrums at the sight of her rival. I thought the cantankerous yet loving Ounooi was wonderful and a little bit scary. Inevitably, after a year or so, it became clear that the banshee baboon in the syringa would have to clear out so that my real mother could walk around the place without being snarled at.
The Cape Point baboons, every bit as fascinating and opportunistic as their northern brothers and sisters, eat a lot of seafood when there’s no Nutella to be had. With their hands and sharp teeth – incisors longer than a leopard’s – they prise limpets and mussels loose from rocks, snatch swimming crabs out of rock pools and eat pyjama-shark eggs. Some people say this brain food helps make them bold and cunning.
Primatologist Dr Dave Gaynor told us from his Karoo base in the town of Nieu-Bethesda that their high-protein diet possibly gave them an edge in the low-nutrient environment of the fynbos around Cape Point. He stopped short, however, of saying that seafood boosted their intelligence.
But studies done by Harvard University revealed that certain nutrients in seafood, specifically omega-3 fatty acids, appear to be necessary for human-brain development. The study looked at 135 human mothers and their infants, finding that the more fish the mothers had eaten during their second trimester of pregnancy, the better their infants did in tests when they were six months old. Now all the experts had to do was devise some intelligence tests for wild baboons on seafood diets. Maybe enter them in a local surfing competition.
Meanwhile, we sat out in blustery weather on the beach near Cape Point doing our own little study of Surfer Boss Bab
oon at sunset. Having cleaned out the Nutella container an hour before, the massive baboon seemed to be in a slump.
“Perhaps he’s just in the trough of a sugar spike,” observed Jules.
Smart baboons don’t live exclusively at Cape Point or in the Waterberg. I once saw photographs of a Chacma in a cowboy suit riding a Cape mountain zebra in a Wild West circus that was passing through the village of Cradock a long time ago. He looked happy and fully in charge of Equus zebra zebra.
Lawrence Green, equally taken with the Chacma, writes in Thunder on the Blaauwberg of baboons acting as shepherds, and doing a good job of it.
Bushmanland poet and magistrate WC Scully once came upon a baboon that carried the drinks in a country bar.
“But he did help himself to drinks occasionally,” he adds.
In Discovering Southern Africa, the travel writer TV Bulpin notes that Uitenhage in the Eastern Cape was once world-renowned for being the home of a working baboon.
“The signalman at Uitenhage railway station, James Wide, had lost both legs in an accident,” he says. “He trained a large baboon called Jack to work the points and to harness a collie dog to a trolley on the line and see that his master was conveyed to and from his cottage. The baboon’s method of working the signals was a famous spectacle. He pulled the levers, looking around to ensure that the correct signals had been moved and then watched the approaching train, catching the various offerings thrown to him by the passengers. For nine years he carried out his work without a mistake until his death in 1890.”
Someone else told us Jack earned the occasional half-bottle of Cape Smoke brandy for his troubles. There was a second famous baboon called Jack, and he became a South African Army mascot in France during World War I. Jack unfortunately lost a leg in action.
“The corporal who brought in the wounded baboon was greatly distressed,”writes Green. “He claimed that Jack had saved his life in Egypt by nursing him through an attack of dysentery. Private Jack went on saluting officers after he had been provided with a wooden leg. He took his seat with the soldiers in the mess and tapped his neighbour on the shoulder when he needed food or drink.”
Lawrence Green adds that the explorer and naturalist Sir Andrew Smith noticed that baboons “disliked ridicule”.
“An army officer was in the habit of teasing a chained baboon and laughing at it, and the baboon planned revenge,” says Green. “One morning when the officer was going on parade, wearing his smartest uniform, the baboon pelted him with mud specially prepared for the occasion. Whenever the officer passed after that incident, the baboon gave derisive barks of triumph.”
Your common or garden Muizenberg baboons were also famous scoundrels, infuriating British troops as far back as the 1790s, according to the writer Jose Burman in The False Bay Story.
“Whole regiments of baboons seemed to inhabit the hills and it was necessary to leave armed men permanently on guard in the barracks to thwart these cunning rascals,” he says. “In spite of constant vigilance, food, blankets and greatcoats were frequently stolen.”
The marauder-in-chief was one Father Murphy, nicknamed such because of his long grey hair and wise eyes. Sly as he was, Father Murphy was captured by the soldiers one day. But they had all become fans of the baboon – no one volunteered for firing squad duty. So they just gave him an all-round shave for punishment and let him run free back into the hills.
Which was quite traumatic for the old fellow. The rest of his troop took one look at their newly shorn patriarch and made to attack him. So Father Murphy threw his lot in with the soldiers of Simon’s Town and became a much-favoured regular in their barracks.
Jules and I wanted to see something of the 21st-century Simon’s Town baboons, so we – and a local couple and their children – spent time finding out about a project called Baboon Matters, formed by one Jenni Trethowan. Its work had turned the troublesome issue of fearless raiding primates into a tourism-friendly, job-creation asset.
Arriving at the monolithic Naval Flats, Jenni was told by one of her baboon monitors via cellphone that a character called Eric was “still not down”.
Although the human occupants of the flats were naval types, it was also the favoured roosting spot for the 34-strong Da Gama Park troop. I could immediately see why. The whole building was clad in breeze-blocks – perfect handholds for ninja baboons.
Jenni pointed out the burly Eric, the leader of the troop, loping around on the top rim of the building. But there was trouble in Monkeyville.
Eric had been shot in the leg a few months earlier. Normally he would have been darted and taken to the vet, but William the Usurper was angling to take over the troop and periodically indulged in infanticide. Jenni feared he would go on a killing spree if left alone in charge of the troop.
When the hidden baboon monitors gauged they would be able to move the troop, they began making their special call which, to baboons, means simply ‘move on’. Abruptly the baboons started to swarm down the building, an extraordinary sight. They came down swiftly. Like noisy ninjas.
A spat broke out among some of the males as they descended. Harry, always sidelined, clambered up a nearby building and refused to come down.
Eric the Leader scooped up as many of his own children as he could and ran off past us, bristling like an animated toilet brush. William the Usurper pursued him. Eric turned about and chased him right back, barking and shrieking insult, with loud encouragement from the females on the slopes of the hill.
People came out of the flats to see what was happening, and parents stood with protective arms furled around young children. But the baboons were completely oblivious to the bipeds.
Eventually the baboons began moving as a troop up into the fynbos hill. Behind them, moving slowly, were baboon monitors Enoch Sityi and Vuyisile Mayedwa, making a monotonous, low call.
The baboons were not scared of them, but just strolled away casually.
Not all of the troop were named, only the ‘role players’ and a few others with distinctive features, explained Jenni.
Apart from Eric and William, there was young Anakin with his intense stare, curious, non-confrontational Quizzicat, Shannon with her dog-bite scar, and Nosketi. It was Enoch and Vuyisile who gave him his name. Nosketi means ‘hen-pecked husband’ in Xhosa. Despite this baboon’s immense size and perfect physique, he was the first to duck out of any confrontation.
Two of the young girls in our party sat on the ground. Shannon the baboon peered quizzically at them under her heavy brows.
They shared a moment of mutual recognition and regard.
“If they see no threat, they relax,” said Jenni.
Jenni and nine baboon monitors were all shareholders in Baboon Matters, and they watched over three troops, including this one – a total of about 100 baboons.
If the baboons were not kept away from the suburbs by the monitors, they would spend all day trying to raid houses. One loaf of bread is equal to the calories they would gain from an entire day of foraging in the wild. Heaven knows how many roots and shrubs match up to a jar of Nutella.
So the rewards were great for a successful raid, but baboons were astute when it came to weighing up energy needs.
“If they’re far enough away from suburbs, it would waste energy to go all the way back,” said Jenni. “They would then rather concentrate on the 150 species of plants and bulbs, scorpions, grasshoppers and beetles that make up their normal diet.”
The idea was that residents would pay a small amount to have baboons taken away from the suburbs, but that plan was still being formulated.
The human-baboon dynamic was slowly changing, Jenni said.
“In 1999, 21 baboons were killed in this area and there was little or no outcry. But in 2005, five or six baboons were shot, and the public response was far more vocal.”
Most of the visitors Jenni had taken on her baboon walks through the fynbos were locals, but there were a growing number of foreign visitors.
“A British jo
urnalist who wasn’t expecting much from the experience told me this was the second-best primate experience she’d ever had,” said Jenni. “It was topped only by her encounter with mountain gorillas in Rwanda.”
We chatted to the monitors. Enoch came from Alice in the Eastern Cape, and Vuyisile from Adelaide. Both lived in nearby Masiphumelele Township.
Enoch said he started doing this job “because one day I want my sons to see baboons”.
The funniest thing, they said, was that while they spent their days slow-chasing the baboons away from civilisation, at five o’ clock every afternoon, the tables were turned. The baboons made a special ‘going-away’ sound, a soft ohohohoh, and gently ‘chased’ the monitors back down the hill back to Simon’s Town. Hey guys. It’s time to knock off now.
My all-time second-favourite baboon is the legendary Kees, constant companion of the colourful French explorer-naturalist François le Vaillant, whom you last saw up at the Heerenlogement on the way to the Richtersveld.
As much as he loved the larger-than-life Kees (an egg-eating poser without equal), he described his pet (and the rest of the species) as “intractable, lascivious, gluttonous, thievish, revengeful and passionate,” adding that “if they have not yet learnt the art of lying, it is only because they do not choose to talk”.
And my darling Ounooi?
Well, she was donated to a park next to the Bapsfontein Resort east of Pretoria, where she spent the rest of her days being admired by country-and-western-music fans and listening to Willie Nelson cover songs about lost love and the cowboy code of life …
Chapter 13: Masiphumelele to Pringle Bay
Swamp Music
Saturday is barbecue day on the teeming streets of Masiphumelele Township, just over the hill from Simon’s Town.