Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Managing our baboon problem
THE importance of managing the human-wildlife conflict is growing, as increased conflict between the Cape Peninsula’s chacma baboons and people has become a cause for concern.
With baboon troops drawn to the abundance of food waste and fruit trees in built-up areas, a number of residents feel that the conflict threatens human-baboon co-existence, and that sustainable management of the baboon population is needed.
As the City conducts engagement sessions with residents and businesses in baboon-affected areas, Simon’s Town resident Peter Willis said that there has been a governance gap that had resulted in the current status of the baboon issue.
“At one extreme are people who believe the City should get rid of the baboons, that they regard as a kind of pest, while at the other extreme are people who believe the baboons have a historic right to be where they (and we) are, and are precious creatures who deserve our protection and care,” Willis said.
“In the middle is the majority of residents who believe we have to find a sustainable way of living in proximity with the baboons, yet making every effort to keep them wild and on the mountain, not in the urban areas, where they become habituated to human food and lose interest in their wild habitat and ways of being. Thanks in part to social media, the feelings of the two extremes have been
stoked up in the past couple of years, and some people have behaved in most unneighbourly ways.
“I’m of the view that baboons are wild animals who live primarily in the Table Mountain National Park, so one would think they should be overseen and managed by SANParks. But SANParks pointed out that baboons are under minimal species threat and are very resilient, so they are of ‘lowest conservation concern’. If they were rare, large mammals like elephants or lions wandering into residents’ homes in the Peninsula, SANParks would most probably send a team out to bring them back – although the fact that the TMNP is unfenced makes such a scenario improbable,” Willis said.
“For decades now, SANParks has stood back and let the City and Cape Nature deal with the urban baboon problem. The City has taken on the bulk of the responsibility and costs, under its mandate to protect residents – but it has no mandate to manage the baboons themselves, which includes deciding on euthanasia permits, etc., as they have no mandate to deal with wildlife. Cape Nature has that mandate, but virtually no budget to do anything about it. Altogether a ‘governance gap’ has been created over the years, in which honest attempts can be made, for instance, on how to deal with repeatedly raiding baboon males, however these issues fall through the cracks and get left unresolved,” he said.
Identifying the root of the problem, principal investigator at the University of Cape Town’s Institute for Communities and Wildlife in Africa (iCWild), Professor Justin O’Riain, said that the problem began when settlers decimated everything.
“Lions were hunted out more than a century ago, and the last time a leopard was seen on the Cape Peninsula was in the 1930s. We broke the ecosystem and, with fewer predators, the baboon population grew dramatically,” he said. “Pine plantations on Table Mountain initially provided the baboons with food and resting places – and mostly kept them away from the growing city below. But, as the pines were harvested into the 1960s, the baboons started to move into urban areas in search of food.”
Going forward, O’Riain added that the goal should be a healthy, viable, sustainable population with improved welfare and improved conservation. “The current data looks good, but work remains to be done, not least to plan for the future as both baboon and human populations increase.To curb growth of the baboon population, the city’s Baboon Technical Team needs to implement birth control through contraception, and must continue to keep baboons away from anthropogenic food sources, as this is a contributing factor to population growth. Culling is off the agenda,” said O’Riain.