Save the CT2 troop

This report has been surprisingly hard to write; this will be our last report on the CT2 troop as the team will be taken over by the City of Cape Town's new service provider (Shark Spotters) on 1 March 2025.

As you know, Baboon Matters undertook this project as a short term interim measure when the CoCT withdrew its rangers leaving the troop to wander the streets completely unmanaged. At the time, the CoCT stated that rangers were ineffective and that the troop had moved into unmonitored territory.  Well, our small under resourced teams proved the City wrong; not only were they incredibly successful, they achieved their results without the use of pain aversion - we did not ever use paintball markers - just hard work and understanding the baboons.

It has been an extremely heart wrenching project as we have seen baboons being shot, run over, attacked by dogs and most recently four males of the troop have disappeared without trace - with only minimal investigation from the authorities.  Each loss of life hit us all hard and there were times we were all low and despondent, but we never gave up and continued to do our very best for the baboons.

In addition, we have had to work exceptionally hard to raise the funds needed to pay our team and we thank your for all your support over the past two and half years.

 I pay special tribute to my colleagues Sam and Bonita who worked tirelessly run fund raising events to secure the funds needed to cover the project running costs as well as spending hours on the roads and up the mountain (in ALL weather conditions) to support the men.

But now it is a time of change.  We have had numerous meetings with the incoming Shark Spotters team and are hopeful that they will not use paintball guns and will allow the teams to carry on doing the good work they do so well.

We will continue to keep a watchful eye over the troop and our wonderful men whom we hold in high regard.

Baboon Matters will now focus on our next project - a massively ambitious body of work to achieve the first ever national population estimation of baboons in South Africa.

 From anecdotal evidence, it seems that far from being a "secies of least concern", we believe there are far fewer baboons than anticipated and that the populations may be very fragmented. Over the coming years we will be working with colleagues to see just what is happening with our Chacma population.

The reason that we are undertaking such a big project is that if we can show how persecuted and fragmented baboon populations are in South Africa, we will be able to secure better protection for them. We will work to encourage conservation agencies to ensure better permits are in place and prosecutions, where necessary, are enforced.

But for now, I say a very grateful thank you to you for your support and contributions for the CT2 troop and ask that you consider continuing funding Baboon Matters through our GlobalGiving project #51322 - Help Baboon Matters Help Baboons,

I look forward to a continued relationship but for now say goodbye and thank you from: 

The CT2 baboons, from Mzukisi, Benson, Fisa, Kaluza, Donovan and Nolan and from Bonita and Samantha.