Bart the Baboon is hanging out at Cape Town’s UCT where he is raiding the bins for their fine pickings; not surprising seeing as he is known for raiding bins, crops and houses.

Nature Conservation Corporation is the private company that is hired by Cape Town to manage their Baboon population and as of yet, Bart has managed to avoid them. The head of the company, Dean Ferreira, said it was not easy to dart in residential areas or at UCT, given the number of people around.

Bart has previously been darted and caged to fit him with a monitoring devise for a programme run by Baboon Matters. Jenny Trethowan, who used to run the programme, said she was disappointed the authorities had decided to put Bart down as the private Wildcliff Nature Reserve near Riversdale was willing to take him.

"He is TB-free and he could have been monitored to see how he did with the new troop. All the obstacles could have been overcome," she said.

The putting down of baboons has been called “a very last resort” yet is set to continue and the many letters asking to “halt the culling” from local residents to Mayor Dan Plato have fallen on deaf ears.

UCT researcher Justin O'Riain gives his "qualified support" to Bart's being put down, and believes CapeNature's policy of not moving baboons off the peninsula is reasonable.

Bart has shown an inability to integrate with his own kind and now lives a solitary life, habitually raiding and striking terror through the campus.