When the Corona lockdown was announced on 23 March 2020, I wondered what impact this would have on baboons and baboon management. I was cautiously optimistic, thinking that as residents would be at home, have time on their hands and were having to be careful with food resources, this would mean that there would be a huge improvement in effective baboon-proofing of homes and general waste management, and that that in turn would make it easier for the service provider to keep the baboons out of urban areas…

Almost 100 Kommetjie residents attended the recent community meeting hoping to hear what the Baboon management plan is for our Slangkop troop. The meeting was MC’d by Ward Councilor Simon Leill-Cock (SLC) with presentations by Prof J. O’Riain (JOR) and Human Wildlife Solutions (HWS) area manager Cath Shutte (CS)…

In this Newsletter we explain why we made the announcement that Baboon Matters is closing down, provide an update on the Famous Four baboons of Scarborough and give an insight of what it is like to be a Cape peninsula male baboon.

In Cape Town, an immediate moratorium is now an urgent priority but a national moratorium is equally important when one considers, for example, the incredibly high numbers of baboons killed in pine plantations monthly.
For the moment, we want to focus on the Cape peninsula and the recent events that have resulted in this call to action. Since the implementation of the Protocol, 74 baboons have been killed…

Did you know that people and other animals eat soil? Like, lots of animals and lots of soil?! I’ve studied soil eating for more than 10 years and still find this curious behavior absolutely fascinating. Soil eating is formally known as “geophagy” for non-human animals and “pica” for humans. It’s not eating a little bit of soil left on your fresh radishes – it’s purposely and deliberately eating soil. And it’s not just any old dirt. It’s special dirt that humans admit walking miles to reach because they crave it. Soil eaters can’t tell you why they crave soil, only that they do.

In 2018, Baboon Matters covered a huge range across SA and in our travels, I noticed a number of baboons with missing limbs, in itself, this is not uncommon. But the more I noticed, the more I became aware that a lot of the baboons we “noticed” were missing their right hand.

When the Constantia Bulletin broke the news on 4 July 2018 that Cape Nature had issued permits to two vineyards to hunt up to two baboons per day, there was shock and confusion – confusion as we had always believed that the Cape peninsula baboons were protected from hunting, and shock that permits issued for one year would allow 2 baboons per day to be hunted. But more than that, there was outrage that right here in our own backyards baboons were being killed by commissioned professional hunters.

The recent furor surrounding the issuance of permits that allowed professional hunters to kill baboons on two Constantia vineyards has highlighted the biggest problem with baboon management on the Cape peninsula – that there is no management plan for this isolated population of chacma baboons.

It has been interesting to note that, typically, when issues to do with baboons arise, the City of Cape Town immediately issues a media release on behalf of the Baboon Technical Team, a “co-operative” arrangement between role players of the City of Cape Town, Table Mountain National Park and Cape Nature who are guided by scientific input from the Baboon Research Unit of UCT and by welfare for the baboons from the Cape of Good Hope SPCA).

2018’s first victim of Cape Town’s flawed protocol for “removing” problem baboons has been killed. Dodger was a young dispersing male from the Slangkop troop who first showed up in the Da Gama troop home range in October. Dispersing to new troops is vital to keep troop gene pools strong – even more so on the Peninsula where traditional migration routes on or off the Peninsula have long been cut off by urban sprawl.

2018’s first victim of Cape Town’s flawed protocol for “removing” problem baboons has been killed. Dodger was a young dispersing male from the Slangkop troop who first showed up in the Da Gama troop home range in October. Dispersing to new troops is vital to keep troop gene pools strong – even more so on the Peninsula where traditional migration routes on or off the Peninsula have long been cut off by urban sprawl.

Perhaps, we can put aside outdated categorizations of baboons; perhaps if we stop vilifying them and instead work towards comprehensive solutions, we can find a way to live alongside each other?

How is it possible that despite a budget of R10 million pa, well-resourced staff and the full support of the Baboon Technical Team members (being the City of Cape Town, Table Mountain National Park, Cape Nature, the Baboon Research Unit of UCT and the Cape of Good Hope SPCA) baboons are still “raiding” in villages?