By Jenni Trethowan | Founder member
In recent months Baboon Matters, together with colleagues, have sent a request for a moratorium on killing baboons to the SA Minister of Environment, including all executive decision makers in relevant government and municipal departments. We are waitng for the official rsponse to this urgent request.
Currently the City of Cape Town, Cape Nature, SANparks and the Table Mountain National Park are negotiating their future roles and responsibilities and whilst they work towards an acceptable MOU we are of the shared opinion that no baboons should be killed under the current management protocols; so far 80 baboons have been killed in this management system and the deaths of these baboons have not shown any significant change to management or patterns of baboon movement, so (apart from moral and ethical reasons) surely it makes no sense to keep killing them.
Within days of sending our moratorium request, we received devastating news that Julius (alpha male of the Plateau Road troop) had been killed when the landowner was granted a hunting permit to kill the charismatic male. We have gathered more support for the moratorium and will actively pursue the request until Minister Creecy confirms no more baboons will be killed.
In addition to the moratorium, we have focused attention on the CT2 troop of baboons, a small troop of 17 (plus 2 brand new infants). The troop should be part of the 11 managed troops, yet for reasons unclear, the CoCT has withdrawn monitors from this troop and they are wandering further and further from their traditional home range and into urban areas. From obvious injuries, it seems that residents have shot at baboons with both paintball gun and pellet guns and it is nerve wracking to see the baboons on the busy roads where they are at huge risk of being killed, as well as causing a vehicle accident if drivers swerve to avoid the baboons.
Baboon Matters has collaborated with a local resident who had effective warning posters and flyers designed and printed to hand out to all areas where we know residents shoot at baboons – we hope that the posters will help to create awareness and slow down traffic, whereas the flyers will draw attention to shooters and hopefully result in prosecutions.
We are busy working with a range of local experts as well as primatologists and scientists and hope that future planning for effective management of the baboon human interface will be a more collaborative and engaged process than it has been over the past 12 years.
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