Saved By Baboon

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31234, 5 December 1966, Page 2

Saved By Baboon

( N Z .P. A.-Reuter) WADLOCK (South-west Africa). Abla, South-west Africa's much publicised baboon-shepherd, recently showed its remarkable intelligence by reporting the attack by a leopard on the flock of goats which the baboon has been trained to look after. Mr Kurt Menges, of Windhoek, said that when he was driving through the countryside, his car was held up by a baboon. He recognised it as Ahla, a female ape belonging to his mother-in-law, Mrs H. Aston. By screaming and wav-

ing its arms, Abla led Mr Menges to a place in the bush where a leopard had killed one of its flock of goats. It then went off to look after the rest of the flock. Traps were set and a large leopard was caught and killed while Ahla looked on. When Mrs Aston first had Ahla as a baby, she was so struck by the animal’s intelligence that she trained it to act as a shepherd. For years now, the baboon has taken the goats out to graze in the bush each morning, led them to water and returned them to their enclosure at night.