A post on Slate’s news summary, “Slatest,” warns of the increasingly aggressive nature of South Africa’s baboons. It seems that more than 400 baboons have organized themselves into gangs and are ransacking cars, causing officials to worry about the threat to tourism in Cape Town during next year’s World Cup. The AP reports that a baboon called “Fred” opened “unlocked doors and jumped through windows to search for food.” Slate continues wraps up its summary as follows: “City officials fear that as monkeys grow more aggressive, non-English speaking visitors will be their first targets. ‘Tourism is going to go through the roof, and this equals exposure to naive people and rich pickings,’ a baboon researcher said. ‘People who stop the car, they're going to get raided.’”
Maybe Caroline and Annie, ESL teachers extraordinaire, can turn the threat of Baboon bias into an international teaching opportunity.
(The AP account, which is quite interesting, describes how city residents have asked for signage in many languages in order to warn tourists about the dangers of these wild animals. Slate omits this part in its summary.)
