Confused cheetahs traipsing through the streets of Sharjah and Abu Dhabi. A tiger cub poking its head out of a 4x4’s front passenger window. That back-seat lion on a leash that did the rounds on Facebook recently. And lest we forget, the python found nestled between the cinema seats a few years ago.
Sometimes it seems as if the UAE has more wildlife roaming around its neighbourhoods than an African savannah. We tend to think that it’s a handful of well-off and irresponsible individuals who can afford to keep dangerous exotic pets. People with huge homes, acres of space and expensive, custom-built cages.
I, too, believed that until a few months ago when I found a baboon* in the corridor of my apartment building.
That’s right, a baboon. And if you don’t believe me, come and see me and I’ll show you the pictures on my BlackBerry.
I had just returned home and was sticking my key in the door when I noticed the cage several feet away. Why it was in the corridor I’ve no idea.
Initially I thought it contained a puppy. But then it quickly dawned on me that it must be one athletically gifted canine if it could suspend itself from the roof of its cage with one limb and scratch its butt with the other.
So I took a closer look and my suspicions were confirmed. Admittedly, it was only a baby baboon and looked about as menacing as Bambi, but it was enough to send me into a mild state of shock.
My building is a humble edifice in the dense concrete sprawl of Bur Dubai. If it’s home to a baboon — surely one of the simian world’s more aggressive species — then it raises the question of what other exotic fauna the average person keeps behind closed doors. Koala bears? Sloths suspended from chandeliers? Barracudas in their bathtubs? (I fear I’m putting ideas into some rich idiot’s head here). Are exotic pets the new sportscars now? Show-off toys in the never-ending game of one-upmanship that the rampant materialism of Dubai seems to foster? If so, it’s something that needs to be seriously looked into. I don’t know about you, but I don’t really like the idea of turning a street corner and being faced with something that could disembowel me with the swipe of a paw.
This is a relatively safe and modern city in the middle of the desert. The nearest jungle is over a thousand miles away. The Arabian leopard is all but extinct. Even scorpion sightings are rare. We couldn’t be more isolated from nature’s nastiest predators – and that’s alright by me. As much as I love animals, I don’t envy people who live in parts of the world where to leave your window open is to risk being raided by a troop of macaque marauders. Or where to go for a walk in a rural area could mean treading on a cobra or getting mauled by a tiger.
I suspect there are far more dangerous animals in the UAE than we think and they’re not all living on a remote compound in the deepest part of Jebel Ali. They could be across the street, in the car next to us, on the other side of our bedroom walls. It’s an unsettling thought.
So next time you hear a blood-curdling howl in the middle of the night, don’t assume it’s your neighbour watching werewolf movies. And you’d better keep that garden gate firmly locked.
*The baboon was gone from the corridor within an hour. I have no idea whether it was taken back to the petshop, set free in the desert or is now my permanent neighbour. If it is, it’s very quiet.