The shooting of a baboon in August 2004 by Table Mountain National Park rangers after it attacked and bit a woman at Cape Point has brought to a head the centuries-old conflict between the two primate species on the Peninsula.
The battle of the primates began soon after the Dutch arrived in 1652 and began to establish farms on the lower reaches of Table Mountain — until then the foraging ground of the indigenous chacma baboon and the respectful Khoisan people, who understood baboon language, learnt many gathering skills from them and never killed them for food.
In the wild, baboons spend about 40% of their time foraging for plant material and insects, and, besides feeding on specific parts of over 115 fynbos plants, they supplement their diet with minerals found in clay, and get protein from shellfish and sharks’ eggs found along the seashore. Although they are not predators, they sometimes kill rodents, small buck and birds, but only adult males have large canine teeth.
Before the arrival of Europeans, baboons had free access to the Cape Flats, where they could forage or start new families. But, as their territory has gradually become prime coastal real estate and tourist terrain, the intelligent chacmas, encouraged by baboon-feeding tourists, soon realised they could get fed in a fraction of the time foraging takes — creating a problem for the people whose houses they took to raiding. What the baboons couldn’t realise was that their intelligent, adaptive behaviour would not endear them to their human counterparts.
In short, after 350 years of cohabiting with people who invariably resolved the problem down the barrel of a gun, only 125 mature chacma baboons (98 females and 27 males in 10 troops) remain in the Cape Peninsula today. A survey done between 2000 and 2003 shows a negative growth rate of 8%.
Primatologists Dr David Gaynor and Ruth Kansky believe the present population is unsustainable. As Kansky says, ‘Humans are becoming more intolerant as the competition for food and territory among primates, especially, intensifies.”
In search of a solution
In 1990, the baboon-human conflict problem reached a zenith when Cape Nature Conservation (now CapeNature) authorities shot a troop of 18 baboons near the rapidly growing suburb of Kommetjie, south of which 74% of the Cape Peninsula baboon population considers home territory. As a result, conservationally aware residents led by Wally Peterson and Jenni Trethowan staged a protest and formed the Kommetjie Environmental Action Group (KEAG) to help protect the remaining baboons.
In 1997, Proclamation 12 was added to Nature and Environmental Ordinance 19 of 1974, declaring that baboons were no longer allowed to be hunted or removed from the area — the first such baboon-protection legislation in Africa. In the same year, South Peninsula Municipality (SPM) councillor Nikki Holderness called an emergency meeting with the South African Police, the navy, the KEAG and other conservation authorities to discuss possible solutions.
In an initial four-month study with funds from the SPM and subsequently the WWF-Table Mountain Fund, Kansky and Gaynor, found that two troops were responsible for raiding in residential areas in the southern peninsula, and it was decided to form a Baboon Management Team (BMT) to coordinate actions between land owners. As the SPM (which now falls under Cape Town Unicity) and the South African National Parks (SANParks), which manages Table Mountain National Park (TMNP), were responsible for the bulk of the baboon home-range area, and CapeNature was responsible for enacting conservation legislation, these three authorities were given joint responsibility for baboon management, together with the representatives of civil society — KEAG and, later, Friends of Tokai Forest, plus the primatologists. Later, additional funding was obtained from the WWF Table Mountain Fund to establish the demography of all troops and devise a management strategy.
In 1999, the BMT adopted a test strategy and employed baboon monitors whose job it was to track two troops of baboons from dawn to dusk and chase them from settlements in Kommetjie, Da Gama Park, Misty Cliffs and Scarborough. The results of the experiment were published in a report which showed that monitors could reduce the proportion of days that baboons raid from 80% to 30% and that the baboon mortality rate could drop from one every month to one every six months. The presence of baboon monitors also changed human attitudes and complaints about baboons by residents dropped by 25%.
The concept of monitors centres on reducing the attraction of foraging in villages rather than in the mountains. ‘Given that half a loaf of brown bread is equivalent to an adult female baboon’s daily nutritional supplement, which in the wild would take about four hours of foraging, it is not surprising that baboons are attracted to human food,” says Kansky.
Monitors, who work in shifts, discourage baboons from entering villages by chasing them at least two kilometres up the mountainside and, if they do enter villages, ensuring they are kept on the move and waving red warning flags to motorists.
Even though monitors only work during daylight hours, the good results suggested that a solution was in sight. But the battle has other dimensions.
Who’s footing the bill?
On completion of the WWF study in 2000, consultant De Villiers Brownlie, in consultation with interested parties, compiled a detailed policy and plan for managing baboons on the peninsula, with the aim ‘to maintain a sustainable baboon population in the Cape Peninsula, while minimising conflict between people and baboons”. The three BMT partners approved the policy in principle, but only CapeNature and the Unicity signed it – on condition that no financial responsibility be undertaken, because funding needs would reach beyond the metropolitan areas, says newly appointed BMT manager and CapeNature representative Melakhaya Pantsi.
Despite the lack of written financial commitment, baboon monitors were employed for three raiding groups until the end of 2002 with funds contributed by the three authorities, residents, corporates and non-governmental conservation organisations. Then, in 2003, CapeNature withdrew its funding. Though some of the deficit was made up by residents and the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), funds dried up and monitors’ hours were reduced, which defeated the aim as continuity was interrupted. The situation was exacerbated by fires which destroyed a large section of the baboon’s foraging ground.
The budget nightmare is also a logistical and political one. Until May 1998, when large sections of the peninsula mountain chain came under the umbrella of SANParks, the TMNP had been managed by 14 different public bodies and 200 private land owners. The extension of the TMNP also meant more funds for preservation of the Cape floral region, removal of invasive alien plants and sustainable development projects for disadvantaged human communities.
With regard to baboons, according to the minutes of a BMT meeting held in July 2004, the TMNP signed the Brownlie Policy with the following proviso: ‘Although TMNP is 100% committed to its role in, and funding of, the BMT, due to the nature of our business and the potential for lack of budget or funding, there could come a time when we are unable to come up with the requisite funding. We are therefore unable to write this into a contract.”
This view was endorsed by the Unicity and CapeNature. In addition, TMNP pointed out that, in terms of the Brownlie Plan, SANParks and not the BMT remains the decision-making authority about problem animals on its land.
Although CapeNature cannot provide funding, Pantsi says the BMT is doing all it can to ensure baboons stay. ‘Baboons were here before we were, and we must learn to live with them,” he says.
CapeNature contributes a secretariat, communications and a research centre for genetics studies. Pantsi believes the community, at least in the urban areas not covered by SANParks, should be involved at every level, so the BMT is running an education programme for schools and residents, to teach them how to interpret baboon language and about security strategies.
‘The community must come to the party; we can’t do it on our own,” stresses Pantsi, who has set up a Baboon Monitor Fund to which the public may contribute. The BMT has also applied to national government for assistance and, to this end, is doing a feasibility study.
Three months ago, the BMT also granted a tender to enable two experienced monitors to form a private service-provider company which will oversee all monitors in the Scarborough/Kommetjie area.
Teach the tourists
But the buck doesn’t stop there — the troops with the most human conflict are in SANParks territory and come with a turbulent history. This is about to change, says Brett Myrdal, who took over the reins of the TMNP in mid-2003.
Even though TMNP and Unicity could not make the financial commitment, they are major sponsors of the BMT and committed to maintaining the biodiversity of the peninsula.
Earlier this year, in a letter to all BMT members, the civil society group complained that baboon monitors were not employed in the Cape of Good Hope section, a tourist hot spot with the highest incidence of conflict with humans. Because baboon numbers in unmonitored high-conflict areas have declined, in contrast to population increases in both monitored areas and unmanaged areas with low incidents of conflict, they asked for urgent action to be taken.
The Cape Point area attracts the most tourists and the highest revenue — some R28-million a year in gate takings alone. Gaynor believes R1-million is needed to implement an effective baboon management strategy in all areas, and, because seven of the 10 troops are in TMNP territory, the Parks Board could contribute more.
But Gavin Bell of TMNP says at least two of these troops spend the bulk of their time, which includes sleeping time, on both private or public land, which makes more than one party responsible.
After the recent attack, Myrdal said TMNP supports the introduction of monitors to the Cape Point area, and that the TMNP and Unicity were prepared to donate R120 000 towards training new monitors in addition to the year’s R240 000 budget because it is essential that visitors are protected. In the interim, however, one of the ‘problem” males from Cape Point had been transferred to Olifantsbos, but he has since led part of this troop back to Scarborough, and this ‘had to be sorted out first”. The two bodies are motivating for a budget of R180 000 each next year for the monitor project, says a TMNP spokesperson.
Besides funding the baboon monitor programme, which has won international awards, the grievance letter said funding should be used for clear signage and a public education strategy to explain why baboons can be a threat and how to avoid conflict with them – a scheme with which Myrdal agrees. Although IFAW has already done much in the way of providing pamphlets and signage, it can only be improved upon. In particular, signs in different languages must stress why tourists should not feed baboons. ‘This is a problem,” Myrdal says, because people do not read the pamphlets.
Concerning the shooting of ‘problem” baboons, the grievance letter maintains that parks officials are not proactive enough about preventing conflict situations, as recommended by the Brownlie Policy, and shooting offending baboons only worsens the situation.
Gaynor estimates that between 10 and 15 adult males have been shot at Cape Point in the past eight years and not one has lasted longer than a year in this high-conflict area — a major problem, acknowledges Myrdal, as it causes a social imbalance. As in disadvantaged human communities, without adequate role models, adolescent males start to behave like delinquents.
Rogue baboons are usually dominant males and, if shot, a male from another troop often moves in and kills the young of the previous ringleader – a natural way to strengthen his own gene pool.
‘Females don’t ovulate while their young are suckling so the quickest way for a new male to reproduce is to kill the young,” says Gaynor. ‘Once he sees the troop getting food from tourists, he’ll become bolder and do it too. And so the cycle begins again.”
The Policy recommends that a baboon should only be destroyed as a last resort if it repeatedly behaves in a manner which endangers public health and safety, and then only after due consideration by the BMT, which will first consider translocation.
Living with baboons
Experience has shown that baboons are too intelligent to fall for scare tactics based on broad Pavlovian principles. Gunfire does not teach a baboon to be scared of guns; it merely learns to avoid a person with a gun. Similarly, eating food laced with nausea-inducing substances will not stop baboons from ever eating that type of food again. Painting rogue baboons white has also had no effect, and playing leopard noises over a loudspeaker only invites their insatiable child like curiosity.
The most obvious deterrent, says Gaynor, is to remove takeaway food outlets from the reserve, or at least the outdoor tables. Since the recent attack, Myrdal has persuaded the operators to swap the positions of the curio and takeaway shops, which will give visitors better protection. Baboon-proof electric fences have also been strengthened, he says, but Gaynor maintains these are not adequate.
Other measures include the imposition of fines for feeding baboons, but none have been recorded to date, although there has been one successful conviction for shooting a baboon meted out by CapeNature to a Scarborough resident.
Pantsi, who works closely with KEAG, says the illegal shooting of baboons remains a problem, but, because it is a criminal offence, it is near-impossible to find witnesses willing to come forward and testify.
You stay, you pay
Although Myrdal supports Pantsi’s contention that those who choose to live near baboon home-ranges should contribute towards baboon monitors, he believes residents should implement a number of cost-effective strategies, especially baboon-proof dustbins and burglar bars.
Jenni Trethowan of Baboon Matters agrees. The majority of residents do want baboons to stay. ‘This is our biggest problem, besides money to support monitors. If residents want to live in baboon territory, they have to take the necessary precautions.”
Towards a truce
Though it has not been researched, it is believed that monitors also generate a fair amount of stress in baboons, but all parties agree, for now, it is the best solution. Myrdal candidly admits that the ideal solution has yet to be found, but says that the kind of sensational headlines which have reached as afar afield as Washington DC should be avoided. Instead, he suggests, if we concentrate on modifying the behaviour of baboons and humans alike, all the citizens of Table Mountain could live together in peace.
As Nelson Mandela, surely a worthy spokesman for the marginalised, says: ‘If we do not do something to prevent it, Africa’s animals, and the places in which they live, will be lost to our world, and her children — forever.”
To contribute towards the protection of Cape Peninsula Chacma baboons, donations can be made to the Baboon Monitor Fund. Contact Melakhaya Pantsi on 021 957 5901 or Jenni Trethowan on 021 783 2630.