Management programme for Betty's Bay baboons

Writer Hedda Mittner

A high level meeting held on 15 April between the Executive Mayor Dudley Coetzee, Municipal Manager Dean O’Neill, officials managing the Overstrand Baboon Programme, as well as councillors from the affected wards in the Hangklip/Kleinmond area led to a final decision taken to immediately expand the implementation of the management programme for the Betty’s Bay/Kleinmond baboon troop. Discussions focused on how to proceed with the sustainable management of the troop by using methods that will ensure a less aggressive approach – but in keeping with the main objective of the Strategic Baboon Management Plan (SBMP): to ensure the sustainable management of baboon troops by keeping them out of the urban area. Up to now, there was no official monitoring programme in operation in Betty’s Bay as part of the Overstrand Baboon Management Programme, and the municipality’s service provider was only operating in Hermanus and Pringle Bay.

The municipality has announced that from Monday 19 April, Betty’s Bay baboons will be incorporated in the Overstrand Municipality’s baboon management programme and actively managed by its service provider. The management programme will include the use of virtual fence technology and other approved management techniques aimed at the rewilding of the Betty’s Bay baboon troop:

• The management approach will take into consideration that management interventions will take time to implement, but that the overall long-term objective for this troop will be to allow it to become wild again.

• The long-term goal is to minimise the possibility of baboons coming into town.

• This will be achieved using a Virtual Fence, only at certain positions, with the main objective of keeping the troop north of the mountain. As the project is implemented, planned activities may change or vary as new information becomes available or troop behaviour changes.

• The troop will also be managed using a less aggressive approach by rangers; in other words with the use of noise aversion instead of initially using paintball markers.

• Should paintball markers need to be used, rangers will shoot single shots only.

• The use of paintball markers will be complemented with the use of non-aversive sounds to create an association between the two.

• The Virtual Fence will be used to the north of the Harold Porter

Botanical Garden and also below the baboon sleep site above the town, so as to encourage the troop to go back over the mountain for foraging in the mornings instead of coming straight into the town.

Overstrand Municipality once again calls on residents and visitors to behave responsibly in their interactions with baboons. The dedicated 24-hour Baboon Hotline number is 072 028 0008 and will remain the same for all the areas.

Residents must continue to use this number to report raiding baboons and are further encouraged to join their neighbourhood WhatsApp groups for baboon alerts.