Cape Town - Over the past six months the Cape of Good Hope SPCA admitted 15 chacma baboons from five different troops, all presenting with human-induced injuries of one sort or another.
The most recent incident involved a baboon, Maggie, that was shot in Constantia last month. The shooting led to an online petition calling for intervention on the shooting of baboons, which stood at over 2 500 signatures by late yesterday afternoon.
Jon Friedman from the SPCA said upon arrival at the scene, they found the injured female baboon lying prone on a garden pathway with her back legs outstretched.
“She was trying to crawl forward using her forearms. We noticed a gash on her cheek and on her upper lip that was the cause of the bleeding into her mouth. She had sustained an open wound beneath her right armpit that was bleeding. Once we had retrieved her, we counted an air rifle pellet lodged in each hind-leg (one pellet having fragmented on impact with her tibia bone),” he said.
Friedman said, “of the 15 admitted, only two were treated and released back into their troops, the rest were all unfortunately humanely euthanised or died due to severity of their injuries.”
Allan Perrins of the Animal Welfare of South Africa (AWS SA) condemned the shooting and said the human/baboon conflict has been exacerbated by the withdrawal of baboon monitors, poor waste management practices and urban encroachment.
“These misunderstood, utterly conservation-worthy creatures whose traditional home ranges have been severely compromised and troop hierarchy and behaviour artificially tampered with, in futile attempts to reduce conflict, need our help and we implore the authorities entrusted with their protection to please step up to the plate.
“There is one thing that man has mastered and that is the art of extinction. We owe it to future generations to do everything in our power to protect them,” he said.
Perrins added that baboons are protected and cannot be hunted or killed in the metro and anyone found guilty of unlawfully killing a baboon can be sentenced to 12 months in jail or a R40 000 fine.
Meanwhile, Toni Brockhoven from Beauty Without Cruelty said the organisation was deeply concerned that the City of Cape Town Urban Baboon Programme was to end in June 2023.
“This is without any extension or alternate plan to ensure the safety of our baboons. We have it on good authority that Cape Nature refuses a moratorium on the killing of baboons while the Management Plan is being amended and updated. It is incomprehensible that while the joint task team and the City faff about, taking their time with plans and drafts, including the suggestions that have been made by us and many others, regularly for a decade and longer, baboons continue to die at the hands of intolerant, frustrated residents,” she said.
The City’s deputy mayor and mayco member for spatial planning and environment, Eddie Andrews said the City is investigating how and in what capacity the City can continue to ensure a transition from our current Urban Baboon Programme to the new dispensation.
“As a result, the City is undertaking a process to extend the current contract for a period of six to 18 months. Extending a tender is, however, very complex. The City’s relevant open and transparent Supply Chain Management processes must be followed in this regard,” he said.