On 15 May, the Rhodes Department of Zoology and Entomology hosted its annual Duerden lecture, celebrating the first head of Zoology at Rhodes.
On 15 May, the Rhodes Department of Zoology and Entomology hosted its annual Duerden lecture, celebrating the first head of Zoology at Rhodes.
This year the lecture was given by Dr Justin O’Riain from the University of Cape Town. His lecture was entitled “Turf wars: can humans and baboons co-exist?” and focussed on the growing problem of baboons and humans sharing habitat in the Cape Peninsula.
Through GPS trackers on the 15 major troops on the Cape Peninsula, O’Riain’s research team discovered that baboons in the Cape Peninsula do not inhabit the rocky, mountainous high lying areas at all as in the song: Bobbejaan klim die berg.
In fact, they spend most of their foraging and resting time on the lower lying areas; the same areas which are residential and agricultural.
Hence, there is a growing conflict of space between baboons and humans. O’Riain established a research group at UCT called the Baboon Research Unit which was initially focussed on a few basic questions: How many baboons are there? Where to they live?
Are they unique from other baboons? And do they place a threat to humans? By answering these questions O’Riain and his team were attempting to dispel myths about baboons which are rife in the Cape Peninsula and to attempt to create informed management policies.
There are only about 270 baboons on the Cape Peninsula forming 15 troops, and they are not genetically different from other baboons in the Western Cape despite their wide variety of food-acquiring accoutrements.
Due to their increased interactions with humans and the urban lifestyle these baboons have picked up a smorgasbord of parasites and bacteria which could threaten human health.
O’Riain deftly explained that interaction with these animals is inevitable given the limited space on the peninsula but not ideal given the infection potential between humans and baboons.
However, there is a possible management solution which involves ‘herding’ the animals into the Cape Point National Park where they can lead a somewhat more organic lifestyle.
O’Riain and his team channelled their inner primate and attempted to find out the best way of herding these animals. They found that a device known as a bear banger (which is used in the USA to frighten bears) was extremely successful.
The baboons associated the people using the device with the loud noise it produced and, as naturally territorial animals, felt threatened and ran away.
This method is a successful, non-lethal form of controlling the baboons on the Cape Peninsula however, the Baboon Research Unit at UCT still face massive hurdles in implementing this device as animal welfare groups have labelled it as cruel.
This year’s Duerden lecture gave the audience a fascinating insight into our hairy, close relations and reenforced the point that if you are going to make informed management decisions, you have to ignore the gossip, myths and old songs and go out and answer some basic questions about the animals involved. You might just get a surprise!
