Africa’s stores?
Fiona Macleod
A Northern Province business syndicate plans to can baboon meat and market it as a delicacy in an attempt to alleviate the pressure on chimpanzees and gorillas in Central Africa, where “bush meat” is a favoured dish on the tables of the elite.
They also plan to sell baboon hands, nails and teeth in Asian countries as sexual stimulants.
The man behind the scheme is Hector Howard- Fulton, executive director of Tfuene Holdings, a foreign investment company.
His representative said he was uncontactable in another African country this week.
His partners, a group of Afrikaans businessmen who are members of the Warmbaths Development Initiative, aim to start building a 1 800m2 abattoir near the town next week.
Ollie Wehmeyer, leader of the group, says the plans are enthusiastically supported by farmers in the area who are plagued by baboons marauding through their crops.
“But it won’t be a wild shoot-out. Ten to 15 baboons will be caught in cages, transported live to the abbatoir and then killed humanely by electric shock, as happens with pigs.”
Howard-Fulton’s legal representative, Dave Gericke, predicts questions will be raised about whether the scheme is legal in terms of the Animal Protection Act.
“Certain concessions will have to be granted by the conservation authorities.”
It’s not illegal to eat baboon meat – provided the Department of Health gives the establishment a clean bill – but conservation authorities have to give permission for the capture and live transport of the primates.
This is perhaps where the most telling objection to the scheme lies.
It is being launched at a time when not only is the wildlife permit system in a state of terminal disarray, but the Northern Province department which would be responsible for regulating and monitoring the scheme is in a state of collapse.
The provincial Department of Environmental Affairs started falling apart after it was amalgamated with the Department of Agriculture two years ago.
Protests about a conflict of interests fell on deaf ears, and two months ago Greg Knill, chief director of environmental affairs, and most of his senior staff were suspended.
Conservation groups point out that while trying to save chimps in Central Africa may be a marketable objective, baboons in South Africa may be equally endangered.
“Before any such bizarre project should be allowed, a proper census has to be undertaken by people who work with primates and who are able to recognise different baboons,” says Gien Elsas of the Centre for Animal Rehabilitation and Education, a Phalaborwa outfit which specialises in primates.
“Baboon populations are declining. Not 20 years ago, the wild dog was considered `vermin’ by farmers. Today it is highly endangered. The same can – and will – happen to the baboon.”
Elsas says electrocuting baboons is unlikely to be easy. “Baboons are not like cattle, which are fairly immobile when the slaughter takes place.
“Their canines are larger than those of a leopard or a lion. How do they propose to keep an active baboon in a prone position in order to give it an electric shock?
“Or do they plan to wet the baboons and then electrocute them? This outdated and inhumane method would not be tolerated by animal welfare groups.”
Elsas and other conservationists add that a tinned-baboon scandal is hardly likely to do South Africa’s conservation and tourism image much good – particularly in the wake of the recent “canned” lion-hunting scandal, which involved hunters shooting drugged lions in fenced-in areas.