Photos

Despite the innocent look on this one's face, the Barbary apes that inhabit the Rock of Gibraltar are often a nuisance, pestering the tourists for food as they get off the cable car at the top of the rock. Now it seems the population has gotten large enough (around 230) to become an actual hazard, because they have taken to roaming around the town looking for food. So the government is talking about culling them, which has raised an outcry among animal rights groups - see this article, for example. It even made the local papers here, which led me to dig up and post this picture.

As always when man and nature come into conflict like this, we do not seem to handle it well. The apes are a nuisance because they look so cute and so human-like that tourists cannot help feeding them - even though there are warning signs everywhere threatening fines for doing so. It goes back even further; British sailors brought the apes to Gibraltar, and during WWII, when their population dropped, Winston Churchill even ordered North African diplomats to capture some more apes and ship them here. So, as so often happens, this is a hazard of our own creation.

The government has not, as of last report, actually committed to culling the apes; they have, however, been trying a birth-control program, but it is taking time. You would think they might try shipping some of them back to North Africa instead of shooting them.