CAPE TOWN — The sharp pop of an air gun echoes through the forested flanks of Constantia as volunteers herd a raiding troop of baboons away from the affluent Cape Town suburb that blossomed in their historic stomping grounds. The Cape baboons (Papio ursinus) play an important ecological role, but with easy access to calorie-rich human food and no natural predators left, the population ballooned. It now clashes regularly with the city’s frustrated human residents. The city is part of a “complex” system, says Gabriella Leighton, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cape Town,. Almost 5 million people live here, but South Africa’s second most populous city is also part of the Cape Floral Kingdom, a global biodiversity hotspot. As the impacts of centuries of human-induced change ricochet through the system, altercations are unavoidable. But Leighton, an expert in urban ecology and carnivore conservation, also describes the Cape Peninsula — a rugged, nearly 500-square-kilometer (190-square-mile) area of exceptional biodiversity that encompasses the city and suburbs — as a natural laboratory. Recently, she published the first record of wildcats regularly hunting marine prey. A group of local caracals (Caracal caracal), medium-sized wildcats distinguished by their sharply pointed, lavishly tufted ears, are hunting seabirds, including endangered Cape cormorants (Phalacrocorax capensis) and African penguins (Spheniscus demersus). The highly opportunistic hunter’s dietary shift is likely the result of large-scale, human-induced changes that have led to more caracal-seabird encounters over time, Leighton says. The complex cascade of changes started a long time ago, escalating with…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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South Africa Today – Environment
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