Help Me! My Neighbours are Baboons is a French-produced documentary special which investigates the phenomenon of increasingly problematic baboons in the Overberg area of South Africa.
The one-hour special originally aired in the UK on Animal Planet on 11 December 2007.
Help Me! My Neighbours are Baboons aired in South Africa on Animal Planet on Sunday 10 February 2008, at 20h00. The special was repeated on Monday 11 February, at 02h40.
Synopsis
We all have problems with our neighbours – anything from the loud music at 4am, to stealing your parking space.
But just how bad can neighbours get? Do they eat all your food? Steal your wine from your refrigerator? Teach their children how to break into your kitchen and then terrorise your home?
That’s exactly what the townsfolk of the Overberg in South Africa have to put up with on a daily basis.
Located between the mountains and the Indian Ocean, this usually tranquil and picturesque area is now inhabited with Chacma baboons, who will do whatever damage they have to in order to find food.
This beautiful area, once wild, is becoming more and more urbanized. Residential villages became more and more numerous, encroaching on the territories of the baboons.
Daily, the baboons move toward the coastal plain to look for food. Kitchens are paradise places for the primates. They do spectacular "house break-in's" to reach them.
These opportunists never miss a chance to grab something they can eat, and if they cannot eat it, they destroy it!
Daily conflicts between men and baboons lead to tense situations.