Rock-throwing baboons break hikers’ legs: ‘Exploded on impact’

[Teh One Who Knocks]

By Ben Cost - New York Post




Monkey see, monkey threw.

Three hikers in South Africa sustained broken legs following an attack by “agitated” baboons, who rolled a large boulder down at them. A Facebook post detailing the alleged interspecies assault is currently blowing up on Facebook.

“Three hikers all suffered broken legs – after a boulder smashed down a mountain,” reads the shocking post, which was posted by the Western Cape-based Wilderness Search and Rescue.

According to the post, the freak incident occurred last month after a group of seven hikers embarked on an abseiling expedition in the remote Banhoek mountains in the Western Cape.

The excursion was going well until the second day when the adventurers stopped for lunch and noticed a troop of Cape baboons on a cliff above them. The simians — which are some of the world’s biggest monkeys, weighing up to 80 pounds and measuring four feet long — appeared “agitated and curious” about the humans below, per the post.


The injured hikers had to be airlifted by rescuers in a helicopter.

“This was the third time I’ve been down this kloof and the first time I’ve seen or heard any baboons up there,” remarked one of the hikers.

However, the alpinists didn’t think much of it and continued their descent down the cliff. That’s when things started to get rocky: two of the hikers decided to rappel on down a waterfall, when a massive 132-pound boulder, apparently dislodged by the baboons, struck the ledge the remaining five were standing on.

The massive stone “exploded on impact,” sending shards of “razor-sharp rock” flying into the hikers like shrapnel, breaking three of their legs and leaving another with a flesh wound. Meanwhile, a fifth hiker was nearly knocked over a ledge by a stone but was halted mid-fall by his safety harness.




“Baboons are curious and can become easily upset by things they are not used to and would be used to
humans walking along cliff paths but not abseiling down them,” said a primate expert while describing
a possible motive for the alleged attack.

Unfortunately, the primate-triggered rock slide was far from over: The mad monkeys allegedly continued to rain stones down on the hikers like something out of a medieval siege, forcing them to seek shelter in the cliff face.

Despite their remote location, the hikers managed to make an SOS call. An Air Mercy Service helicopter and a team from the Wilderness Search And Rescue (WSAR) were mobilized.

Upon arrival, the team used winches to lower paramedics unto the ledge where the climbers were huddled. The most seriously-injured hiker was then “packed into a stretcher and flown to a nearby landing zone,” while “the remaining two patients were hoisted from the ledge in rescue harnesses.”


The alleged attack occurred in the Banhoek Mountains, outside Stellenbosch.

All three were subsequently transported to the hospital while the four uninjured hikers made their own way down the cliff.

“We commend the two uninjured hikers for remaining calm and doing a fantastic job caring for the injured and wish them a speedy recovery,” said WSAR spokesperson Johann Marais.

It’s yet unclear whether or not the avalanche was deliberate, though primatologists have their suspicions.



“Whether they were deliberately throwing the rocks at the hikers or just dislodging them I guess will never be known but that was a lot of rocks to accidentally dislodge,” theorized one ape researcher, who specializes in rescuing the primates from urban areas, the Mirror reported. “It takes a lot to accidentally dislodge a 60 kilogram boulder.”

She added that baboons “can become easily upset by things they are not used to and would be used to humans walking along cliff paths but not abseiling down them.”

The idea of monkeys casting stones may seem like a very human act. However, the primate enthusiast pointed out that the critters “can throw very hard” despite only being able to toss things underhanded due to their bone structure.


A helicopter arriving at the scene.

On the other hand, one of the uninjured hikers said they didn’t “believe that the baboons were acting aggressively.”

“The area is full of loose rock and debris,” they explained. “It is likely that the rocks were dislodged when the baboons were following us on the ledges above.”

If this interspecies stoning was indeed on purpose, it wouldn’t be the first time lower primates have displayed shockingly human-like behavior. In January, footage emerged of vengeful monkeys beating and attempting to drown a thieving rat for stealing their food at a zoo in China.

In a far more brutal example of simian vengeance in 2021, murderous macaques in India threw 250 dogs off the tops of trees and buildings as apparent revenge for killing one of their babies.

[PorkChopSandwiches]

Wow, thats some crazy shit

[lost in melb.]

I wonder what their motivation was?

[deebakes]

they saw the movie