Baboons & Rainbirds

Not far from the towering cataracts of Victoria Falls, in darkest Africa, 20th Century civilization was fighting a hapless battle with the denizens of the jungle. It wasn't lions, leopards, elephants or crocodiles; they had capitulated without a struggle. It was baboons.

The baboons have been thwarting progress ever since the government cleared away 430 acres of savanna last year and laid out Livingstone Airport, designed for jet transports. To begin with, the big grey baboons streamed out of the forests on to the runway, swinging big sticks to squash up a midday lunch of scorpions. "They got in the path of oncoming planes and left sticks and rubbish on the runways," complained Airport Manager E.G.F. Salmon. "We drove out in jeeps to drive them off and fired shots over their heads. Somehow we couldn't shoot to kill; they were too human."

The baboons retreated, took to coming out at night to get revenge. Salmon and his men installed electric flare lamps along the runway to scare them off, but the baboons thought they were forest fires. One night a ghostly army of the creatures, led by an aged and skilled tactician, sneaked out of the forest and raced across the open to the flare lamps. They smashed at the fires with sticks and stones, swung at them with hairy fists, howling in warlike fury all the while. "It was some night," reported Manager Salmon dolefully. And it was enough. Last week Manager Salmon decided to ring the field with a $12,000 electrified fence. But still the jungle would not be won: there remained the rainbirds--huge, storklike migrants who flock to Rhodesia each year in the rainy season. They were strutting by the hundreds on Livingstone's runways, as arrogant as any baboon. "The fence," sighed harassed Manager Salmon, "probably won't keep out the rainbirds."

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