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Perhaps, we can put aside outdated categorizations of baboons; perhaps if we stop vilifying them and instead work towards comprehensive solutions, we can find a way to live alongside each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

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