Mature male baboons weigh up to 40 kg, more than double the mass of the females, which average only 17 kg. There is quite a wide spectrum in hair colouration. This relates to age, sex, and also to the area where the animals lives.
Baboons are reported to live for about 45 years. These animals are quite vocal as they roam around in search of food and an alarm barked from somewhere soon advertise their presence when they have seen you in the mountains.
Mary Yates in an article, Introduction to the Baviaanskloof, published in Leisure magazine in November 1993, says that the earliest observation of a baboon in South Africa was made by an Englishman, Sir James Lancaster, who had gone ashore at the Cape in August, 1591, over 400 years ago, and had written in his journal:" here also is a great store of overgrown monkeys..." An entree in the Van Riebeeck settlement journal in 1652 made a note of baboons as being, "big and horrible to look at".
In the Baviaanskloof the Divisional Council at one time paid out five shillings bounty apiece for these troublesome animals, on production of a set of tail and skin from the top of the skull - which had the ears still attached.
At the height of the research into the heart transplant operations at Groote Schuur baboons had a value of 6 shillings (or 60c) each. They were caught live in the area and taken to Cape Town by hospital staff to carry out experiments.
Today the Baviaanskloof is a protected area for baboons and other wildlife species.
