Is killing Cape Peninsula baboons a conservation-based plan, or a travesty and a con?

Daily Maverick

02-07-2025

After years and years of advocating better baboon management, the glimpse of another 'new action plan' is beguiling. But is it convincing? Jennis Trethowan, Peter Willis and Ben Cousins weigh in on both sides of this debate.
Killing Cape Peninsula baboons is a travesty and a con
By Jenni Trethowan
I was in Cape Town over the past few days, meeting colleagues and debating the options our ever-beleaguered peninsula baboons face. It was hard not to feel emotional for these animals when I saw them as they foraged for food casually thrown out by wasteful humans, dodged speeding cars and finally huddled together to keep warm in the driving rain and biting cold.
For me and my colleagues, it is awful seeing baboons in urban settings, peeling food out of old packets or off the pavement, and it is especially hard to see them in these settings because I know there is a rampant escalation of shooting, with almost every baboon X-rayed now showing multiple pellet or bullets in their small bodies. And yet no one is prosecuted, while the shooters brazenly tout their weapons and fill the streets with anger.
The death rate of our peninsula baboons is the highest it has ever been and just this weekend alone three more lost their lives.
I would so love to think that after our hard-fought legal appeal and having obtained a court order, that finally the Joint Task Team would be implementing its solutions and that real, meaningful change is on the way. Unfortunately, I have been working in this arena for too long, as I recall being similarly encouraged by the management plan of 2002, the Brownlie Doc of 2004, the Experts Symposium of 2009, the arbitration and then court action where the authorities battled it out in court themselves (2015) and then the subsequent workshops, the 'new' CARBs… and on. And in all of that, other than the ranger programme (and the team are not even really trained as 'rangers', which is a much-revered position in Africa), not much was implemented.
In 2018, guidelines that had been designed in 2010 to deal with so-called problem baboons were revised to be 'more efficient'. On paper the guidelines make clear provision that mitigation strategies must be in place before 'errant' baboons can be removed (killed), but nearly 80 have been killed, with none of the mitigation in place.
To combat the lack of action from the authorities, NGOs and resident groups have fought hard to get better management in place. There are really good people who tried to fill the dreadful breach left by those whose responsibility it is, and the combination of NGOs and individuals actually did achieve a lot, but with their meagre budgets, lack of resources and lack of statutory authority there was always going to be a limit to what we could actually do – we cannot fine repeat offenders or enforce waste management.
But limitations did not stop us from at least trying and when the City of Cape Town withdrew rangers from two troops, individuals stepped in and then for the next two years or more Baboon Matters, Baboon Watch WC and the Green Group of Simon's Town ran highly successful, privately funded projects that demonstrated how to effectively work with baboons, keeping the troops out of urban areas without pain aversion.
So, after years and years of advocating for better management, the glimpse of another 'new action plan' is beguiling and we all long for the best outcomes for these persecuted primates who truly do deserve to live their best lives in natural spaces.
However, the last press release from the Joint Task Team outlining the new plan is not convincing:
From the task team's press statement on 29 May 2025: 'It is proposed that five splinter troops be removed from the Cape Peninsula as these troops have limited access to low-lying natural land with plants of high nutritional value for foraging; the low-lying areas are too small to sustain them; rangers have very little success in keeping the baboons out of the urban areas leading to an overreliance on aversion techniques; the health and welfare of the troops are severely compromised; and escalating conflict between baboons and residents is being recorded.'
This brief paragraph needs to be examined.
'Troops have limited access to low-lying natural land with plants of high nutritional value for foraging': Yes, baboons do like low-lying natural areas, but adapt to all areas where they can access food. There are tracts of land that baboons have chosen not to use because the high-reward foods found in human areas are far more lucrative to them. The notion that there is sufficient land and food was widely supported by researchers when they tried to convince both the authorities and residents that effective baboon-proof fences would allow the baboons access to larger areas of land to forage in. At that time there was no mention of the need to kill baboons if the fences were installed.
'Rangers have very little success in keeping the baboons out of the urban areas leading to an overreliance on aversion techniques': And yet both the Seaforth and CT2 troops were successfully kept out of urban areas without any pain aversion at all.
'The health and welfare of the troops are severely compromised': Professor O'Riain has been warning about the impacts on the baboons' health for years. He has warned that the baboons have been found to carry pathogens and various diseases, as picked up in a small-scale sampling undertaken by UCT.
Why has the Joint Task Team overlooked the advice of their main scientific adviser for so many years? Why were mitigation strategies suggested by doctors Gaynor and Kansky not implemented (2002), and when O'Riain embarked on an intensive campaign to get baboon-proof fences installed (2012), why was his advice overlooked again? It is obvious: keeping the baboons out of town would keep them healthy.
It is true that currently certain troops may have health issues, but surely reducing their access to human food waste will show an immediate improvement in their overall health?
If the reasons for removing the 'splinter' troops are debatable, the manner in which the removal may occur are even more questionable.
The Joint Task Team continues: 'How these troops should be removed will be reviewed by a panel of external international and local experts and will be open for comment by the [Cape Peninsula Baboon Advisory Group]. The options include translocation for rewilding, capture and removal to an existing sanctuary or to a newly established sanctuary, humane euthanasia, or a combination of these options.'
By euthanasia what is really meant is to kill those baboons. Those in favour of the removal are attempting to disguise the killing as a 'normal conservation strategy' — a cull. But don't buy into the soft sell!
In a well-run national park or nature conservancy there may be occasions for animals to be culled in times of drought or if carrying capacity is genuinely exceeded. However, the Cape Peninsula baboons (according to papers submitted by SANParks in our recent court application) do not spend time in Table Mountain National Park.
It is true to note that damage to property as a result of baboons happens in urban areas, but there are no residential areas in Table Mountain National Park, so how could SANParks offer to cull baboons for the City of Cape Town? Or will the City have to get individual permits from CapeNature?
It is also true to note that none of the authorities did anything at all to effectively reduce the attractants or prevent baboons gaining access to said attractants — other than the rangers which the Joint Task Team now says are not effective.
The fact that a cull cannot take place unless mitigation strategies have been applied is backed up in the Animals Protection Act (APA) and the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act (Nemba), so we assume then that the Joint Task Team will opt for a combination of options — perhaps this is a clever way to avoid being held accountable to legislation which prohibits a cull without necessary mitigation in place?
Concerned residents and groups must not be diverted or persuaded that the option to remove baboons by killing them, although a hard decision, is a conservation-based decision. The Joint Task Team has not implemented its own mitigation strategies and therefore cannot cull baboons. If it chooses to remove, by killing, many so-called problem baboons it will be a travesty and a con to get around the APA and Nemba and still not within the parameters of its own guidelines.
While I don't hold out hope that this is the change we all long for, I do believe that solutions are there.
I do believe that as a priority the strategic baboon-proof fences should be installed and that at the same time the City should embark on a stringent, environmentally based waste campaign – a campaign not just for baboons but about our environment, one where baboon-proof bins will be essential, as will better waste control and accountability to regulations. In this campaign there would be no food attractants easily available to baboons should they get into urban areas, waste would not be allowed to blow into and contaminate our marine protected environment – so, although it is about baboons, the larger environment would benefit and it would be a huge win for both communities and the environment.
The debate about our baboons has raged for years, and quite honestly I don't think the baboons themselves know why they are so persecuted and maligned – they are just baboons being baboons. It's up to us to be better and do better and we will need to do better very quickly if we are to save them. DM
Jenni Trethowan has championed the rights of baboons in Cape Town for 25 years. In 1990, she, with Wally Petersen, formed the Kommetjie Environmental Awareness Group (KEAG) which successfully lobbied for the protected status of baboons on the Cape Peninsula. In 2001 she left KEAG to start Baboon Matters, focusing on creating awareness for the plight of baboons living on the urban edge.
New Cape Peninsula approach to baboon management is a significant step
By Peter Willis and Ben Cousins
No one — including the experts proposing removal of splinter groups — wants to see baboons culled. However, they know that effective government demands a willingness to take difficult and potentially unpopular decisions for the wider, longer-term good.
At long last, we are getting close to an actual plan of action for baboon management on the Cape Peninsula.
While the authorities' full plan has yet to be made public, some outlines have emerged and have provoked immediate opposition from animal rights activists.
Here are the facts as we know them:
The Cape Peninsula Baboon Management Joint Task Team (JTT) has publicly announced it will shortly release a comprehensive plan intended to ensure the permanent existence of a healthy, free-roaming wild baboon population from Table Mountain to Cape Point in the Table Mountain National Park. The action plan will use the tools defined in the JTT's Cape Peninsula Baboon Strategic Management Plan (CPSBMP), published two years ago;
The JTT action plan is currently being finalised, for review in July by a panel of South African and international experts on primates and urban wildlife management. The proposed plan will be made public before this panel review, and after the review the JTT will decide – perhaps by the end of July – on a final version, to be followed with implementation;
Headlines on the known details of the plan so far have focused on the JTT's decision to consider removing five splinter groups comprising 122 urbanised baboons, which represents 19% of the Cape Peninsula's total of 630 baboons across 16 troops. Culling the baboons or removing them to a remote sanctuary are the most likely options under the CPSBMP for carrying out this strategy. The international panel's review will examine whether the draft action plan best uses these or any other options available; and
Other aspects of the action plan include strategic fencing in some suitable areas; a pilot sterilisation programme for some troops in the northern peninsula; zero tolerance for the formation of new splinter groups, and stronger, properly enforced wildlife management bylaws.
The significance of this moment can't be overstated. For decades, calls for effective baboon management have come from all sides of the baboon debate on the Cape Peninsula.
Thanks largely to uninspired and divided political leadership in recent years from the JTT's three governing authorities, along with often fierce opposition by animal rights groups, the authorities' previous efforts, with small exceptions, never amounted to anything meaningful and sustainable on the ground.
The result is today's unacceptable reality: too many baboons for the available ranging territory and natural food resources; splinter groups from established baboon troops that have become dependent on access to human settlements to survive; escalating human-wildlife conflict as habituated urban baboons raid and damage homes and businesses; and bitter disagreement over how to proceed, which has deeply divided communities while paralysing the authorities.
A particular concern is the poor health and welfare of Cape Peninsula baboons, especially those that spend most of their time in human settlements such as Simon's Town, where two established troops and three splinter groups have become entrenched.
These 'urbanised' baboons get sick and injured and die more often than wild baboons, and have learnt to reap human food rewards by raiding homes and businesses – breaking doors and windows, tearing off roof tiles, damaging property – which can be a terrifying experience for many residents and visitors.
The tragedy of the situation is that becoming dependent on human settlements to survive is not the fault of the baboons, but they will never 'unlearn' such behaviour or return to a fully wild existence.
Conservation or animal rights?
In recent weeks, animal rights activists have flooded local media with dire warnings of an overzealous plan to eradicate the Cape Peninsula baboon population.
Their one-sided characterisations of a plan they haven't seen may be an attempt to frighten off politicians from the obligation they have finally embraced: to deliver intelligent, humane and sustainable management of our beleaguered baboon troops that keeps them out of urban areas.
Where animal rights activists (who in some cases have deep knowledge of specific troops) could be constructive contributors to this moment is if they were to propose a viable alternative to the options compiled by experts for the JTT.
No one – including the experts proposing the removal of splinter groups – wants to see baboons culled. However, they know that effective government demands a willingness to take difficult and potentially unpopular decisions for the wider, longer-term good.
The gulf between those who will contemplate culling as a baboon management tool and those who reject it centres on the fundamental difference between a conservation approach to human-wildlife relations and an animal rights approach.
The conservation approach looks, as far as possible, at the whole ecosystem, including humans, and asks what interventions are needed (if any) to enable all parts of the system to remain viable and sustainable, even if at a smaller quantum than in pre-human times.
In practice, conservation sometimes has to consider culling of wild animals as a potential tool for sustaining both ecosystems and the wellbeing of the majority of a group of wild animals.
The animal rights approach starts from the philosophically and spiritually understandable position that nothing justifies humans killing animals or causing them preventable suffering.
Ideally, these two approaches would align strongly with one another, and in many cases they do. In the case of our neglected Cape Peninsula baboons, however, we have reached the point where the two approaches are incompatible.
The authorities, consulting with globally acknowledged experts and after gathering necessary data, appear to have decided to adopt the conservation approach and are ready to act on it.
Let the authorities know you care
Our recommendation and request to residents who are affected by Cape Peninsula baboon troops is:
If you care about having healthy baboon troops living free-roaming lives on the peninsula's mountains, but not in suburban or urban areas, please write a note to the JTT and the mayor, encouraging them to press on with their current process and keep sight of its core aim: to separate baboons from urban settlements so they can recover and retain their fully wild nature as far as possible. Email [email protected] and [email protected]
The JTT's role is to develop a clear, properly informed plan that will best serve all parties, including baboon troops and communities, and then implement it through their contracted agents, the Cape Baboon Partnership.
At this stage, our role as affected residents is to lobby clearly for the outcome we want. Then it is the domain of experts — the scientists, wildlife management professionals and animal welfare groups — to make their decisions and recommendations to the JTT.
The time to act is now, and we are encouraged that the JTT has stepped up to make the hard choices necessary to reset this most complex situation and create the conditions for a better future for all. DM
Peter Willis is a freelance facilitator of strategic and leadership conversations with 30 years of working in the field of sustainability and resilience. Ben Cousins is an emeritus professor at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies at the University of the Western Cape. They are both members of the South Peninsula Civics Coalition, which seeks to assist in finding rational, science-based and pragmatic solutions to the complex problem of how to conserve and manage baboons at the urban edge.