The city of Cape Town and suburbs are built on a long narrow Peninsula with animals having played a part in local history. Baboons, Cape otters, cerval cats, porcupines, tortoises, are to be found on the mountainous areas while various other larger animals are to be seen in more enclosed spaces such as the Cape Point Nature Reserve or on the Groote Schuur Estate. Bird species are popular members of suburban gardens. But certain individual animals have become legendary, details of their lives still being spoken about long after their demise.
HOUT BAY LEOPARD |
JUST NUISANCE SIMON'S TOWN |
Simon’s Town also had, in earlier years, an unusual ship’s
mascot as a visitor. She was Rifles the leopard. The story goes that while the coal burning
ship”Narcissus” based in Simon’s Town
and part of the Royal Navy South
Atlantic Squadron visited Mombasa, Kenya in 1914, an officer bought a young
leopard kitten. The captain agreed to allow the small cat aboard. In time she
wore a collar with her name on it, became very tame and very used to her fellow
shipmates. In 1919 the ship was decommissioned and Rifles became a resident of the London Zoo.
Philly the white
horse was another animal that was often in the public eye, particularly in Camps Bay.
As a young foal he was, in 1932, bought or rescued by a Mr De Beer from a farm
in Hout Bay.
At this time Camps
Bay was not heavily
populated nor were there many cars on the roads so Philly was able to roam about the area more or less as he
wanted. The Law seemed to have turned a
blind eye to his comings and goings. Gardeners prized his droppings. This did not mean that there were no complaints
such as he was a “nuisance, an itinerant beggar, a vagrant and a won’t work.”
By 1962 Philly, with suitable
ceremony, was made a Freeman of Camps
Bay. By this time he had a donkey
companion named Nellie. But times were changing. Camps Bay
had grown so it was decided that the two would be confined at night. But Philly
was aging and died on 9 December 1967.
A memorial plaque was placed on a wall of the Camps Bay
library. There is also a mural in the Camps Bay
High School which depicts
details of Philly the white horse and
Nellie his donkey companion.
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