Invisible ‘fences’ keep marauding Gordon’s Bay baboons at bay
A “LANDSCAPE of fear” – one that exists purely in the mind of target animals. That’s how Phil Richardson describes the “virtual fences” his wildlife management company has developed to chase away unwanted animals: in this case, a troop of baboons in Gordon’s Bay.
“I like to think of a virtual fence as a territorial boundary. It’s an established boundary. The baboon respects it out of fear that, if he is caught trespassing, he will face serious retribution… It is this very fear that makes the animal respect the boundary and stay on his side,” explains Richardson, in his presentation at the seventh Oppenheimer De Beers Group research conference in Joburg this week.
“The fence,” he continues, “produces a variety of stimuli such as alarm calls, predator calls, sounds of dying animals, predators squabbling and pyrotechnics, which create stimulus unpredictability, thus minimising the chances of habituation.”
Other scary sounds and loud bangs can be added “to enhance the fear”, he says. “The sound and hormones produced by agitated swarming bees can also be added to the mix.” Until now, virtual fencing has had very limited application to wildlife “but the potential is certainly huge”, he believes.
Earlier this year, Richardson’s fir m created a virtual fence to deter baboons that were sleeping on the cliffs above Gordon’s Bay and then raiding town every morning and evening.
“Initially the baboons only went down in winter, when their food supplies are limited, but in recent years the baboons have been raiding all year round… Since the virtual fence was activated, it’s been very successful at keeping the Gordons Bay troop out of town. We have an activation rate of once every three weeks.”
Richardson explains that the virtual fence contained several “action stations” placed in a virtual fencing line between the Steenbras Dam and the False Bay coastline. “These action stations are waterproof boxes that contain a double-barrelled bearbanger and two high-amp speakers with 99 sound channels. The stations are radio-controlled from a hand-held remote, with a range of 700m.” (Bearbangers are firecrackers which are specifically tailored to frighten off wildlife.)
The alpha male and female baboons are collared with GPS, recording their position at regular intervals, which increases to once every 10 minutes once they get within 500m of the virtual fence – at which point the virtual fence operator is notified about the baboons’ positions on his smartphone. He then drives to the site and sets out seven action stations about 50m apart, and hidden in a line ahead of the baboons.
“As the baboons get within about 50m of the virtual fence line, the operatorstarts playing an alarm call, then sounds of lions roaring, then a buffalo being killed. The baboons become very agitated, and the alpha male often approaches to see where the danger is coming from.”
The bearbangers are then activated from the edges and middle of the virtual fencing line. “The baboons immediately run off at least 500m and continue to move to the far end of their range.”
Richardson says the virtual fencing principle is now being extended to Hermanus.
“Baboon problems are also being experienced in the Karoo. Here some farmers lose up to 50 percent of their annual lamb yield. Putting collars on adult male baboons and on their sheep will alert the farmers.”