Wildlife/Human Conflict Solutions: My favourite group of wild baboons.

Volunteer - Heather Roberts - and myself, visit my favourite baboon friends...May 2008.

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Chacma baboons (Papio cynocephalus ursinus) and vervets (Chlorocebus pygerythrus)...

...are two of five species of indigenous primates in South Africa. Although an important part of our natural heritage, they are severely persecuted. Being hunted as pests by farmers, their habitats are shrinking due to the constant expansion of human settlements and the danger of busy traffic on roads, which cross the land on which they lived a long time before us.

Babies of killed mothers are often taken as pets, which is not a sustainable solution as they generally start to bite when they grow up - this is part of a monkey's language but is far magnified by the trauma of being controlled in a captive situation. Wild vervet monkeys do NOT bite humans, yet the vervet monkey has been tainted with a reputation as a biter because when kept and confined as a pet, and when humanised this way, they start to bite to protest that fact that their lives are being controlled or to jostle for a place in the hierarchy.

It is impossible for a human to meet the social needs of a monkey; pets invariably end up with mental trauma and behavioural problems. And the people who have taken them in as pets unfortunately discover that their "love" for their pet has ensured the monkey a miserable life.

Loving these animals involves giving them what is best for them above serving our own needs. The vervet monkey is a highly social animal needing a full social life among their own kind and a protective environment in a wild area, as free from human interference, as possible.

Here we are offering solutions to help primates and people as well:

1) Short term ones: Rehabilitation center, which at the moment cares for orphaned and injured monkeys. Future plans are to return them back to their place in nature…and…

2) Long term ones: to break down the many misunderstandings that have been passed down through the centuries about these primates so that people can gain an understanding that they are not our enemies, and that if we know them, we don't need to be afraid of them. And to understand that with some tolerance and patience, it is quite possible to learn to live in harmony. By communication with the authorities, we hope to work towards changing protective legislation which is insufficient at the moment.

November 01, 2009

My favourite group of wild baboons.

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