What large canines you have

I have spent a few days tracking the baboons now. I can totally see why some people get addicted to field work. You have the thrill of a chase (ok, not so much a chase, but a lot of looking), then a discovery, and then you get to watch animals that you are really interested in for hours. And, you get to go where they go and in some cases do what they do. The person I was tracking with the other day tried some of the fruit that they were eating. Her first word was "mucous." But, it was fun to watch.

This morning, in what would prove a futile search for the troup of baboons known as "Kanonkop" we came across a different group of baboons. They either crept up behind us, or we walked right by them without knowing they were there. Then, their behavior got kind of strange. They got real interested in us and started approaching in what was a kind of velociraptor from Jurassic park moment. I felt I was being hunted. They were moving as a group to surround us. Now, this is really odd behavior for baboons. I happened to be with the person running the project and she has tracked baboons here for years and never saw anything like this. We tried just moving off the path and looking submissive, and they followed us. We tried TALKING REALLY LOUD, which turned out to be a bad idea as they became more aggressive in their posture. Finally, we tucked our absence of a tail and walked off the side of the mountain...away from them and the path. It felt very much like they were being territorial. Which, baboons are....with each other. So, either they saw us as baboons or as a threat. Either way it was rather exhilarating and I was glad I had a large walking stick with me...