A Western Cape woman is upset that her pet baboon was destroyed instead of being sent to a rehabilitation centre.

Annie Paulsen was reportedly given the baboon by students, who found the orphaned animal near Bonnievale.   She kept it for a while, but then arranged for it to go to the Riverside Rehabilitation Centre in Limpopo, and took it to the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) to arrange the transfer  However, when she phoned the SPCA to find out how this had gone, she was told the animal had been put down.

Brett Glasby, of the Cape of Good Hope SPCA, told The Cape Times the baboon, which had a nappy and a dummy, was completely “habituated” to people.

The provincial environmental body, CapeNature, reportedly instructed that the baboon could not be moved out of the province, and ordered that it be put down.

“It was clear the animal was humanised and would be impossible to restore to a healthy behavioural state,” CapeNature spokeswoman Liesl Brink told the newspaper.