Cape Town - As the City of Cape Town gears up for public engagements on the management of baboons in the Cape Peninsula, activists are up in arms over the recent killing of an alpha male baboon, Julius, from the Plateau Road troop.
Julius was allegedly “humanely put down” after CapeNature legally issued permits for his demise.
Councillor Appointed Representatives for Baboon suburbs (Carbs) Chantal Carstens-Luyt, who had interacted with the Plateau Road baboon troop for more than three years, said Julius was labelled as an aggressive baboon, though he was not.
“Yes, he managed to get into people’s homes that did not baboon-proof their houses,” she said.
“I feel that if those specific people had put the baboon-proof bars on, none of this would have happened. He has never been aggressive towards people, and never hurt a person before.
“All he did was care about his family, and then try to score luck whenever possible, as would any other male baboon, or any other baboon in general,” she said.
Carstens-Luyt said killing a baboon for raiding houses was not a justifiable cause for his death.
“I think that there were many other solutions that could have been done before this horrific action was taken.
“My biggest concern is the dynamics of the troop now, as there is no alpha male to look after the troop. The next male that will be following up is not even a sub-adult male yet.
“And we will be keeping a very close eye on the troop to make sure that no harm comes to any of the others. This needs to stop; the killing needs to stop. It’s inexcusable now, completely inexcusable,” she said.
Beauty Without Cruelty SA chairperson Toni Brockhoven said the killing of Julius had highlighted the need for a moratorium on issuing permits to hunt baboons until the current protocols were revised.
Brockhoven said it was unacceptable that residents got to wilfully be the cause of the death of baboons when it was human behaviour and apathy which caused urban foraging.
CapeNature confirmed that a permit was issued to a private landowner for the hunting of a male baboon on private property on the southern section of the Cape Peninsula on Friday.
It said the permit application was accompanied by evidence showing repetitive raiding and damage-causing incidents by this animal, with little to no fear for humans, since January 2020.
“The landowner, whose property has electrified fencing, took various deterrent and exclusion mitigation measures, but nothing deterred the animal’s raiding behaviour.
“As a last resort, the hunting licence was necessitated when it was clear that the animal’s level of raiding only increased over a two-and-a-half year period and the negative baboon human interaction left the landowner with little choice,” said CapeNature.