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Sir David Attenborough has supported a legal action to help the baboons.
Danny Martindale / WireImage
- Betty’s Bay Baboon Action Group is fighting against the management of the baboons by the Overstrand Township.
- Sir David Attenborough has lent his support to the group’s crusade.
- Attenborough believes that there is a “moral duty to find a humane solution to the problem.”
First, it was Dame Jane Goodall – Now world-renowned naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough has come out in support of the Betty’s Bay baboons.
In a letter to conservation photographer Peter Oxford, who heads the Betty’s Bay Baboon Action Group (BBBAG), Attenborough expresses his support and says he “fully supports” the group’s efforts to allow baboons to “continue to roam free.”
He goes on to say, “The problem has been created by people luring these intelligent creatures close to human habitation by leaving waste and discarded food easily accessible, so surely there is a moral duty to find a humane solution to the problem.”
In July, the task force protested a contract awarded by the local Overstrand municipality to Human and Wildlife Solutions (HWS), to manage baboon troops in the area, because the municipality had not consulted residents.
David Attenborough with orangutan and baby at London Zoo in 1982.
HWS previously handled baboon troops on the Cape Peninsula for the city of Cape Town, and the baboon handling guidelines adopted by the Overstrand municipality were severely criticized by animal activists and the Jane Goodall Institute for “unnecessarily hostile tactics.”
Goodall is a world-renowned primatologist, who won accolades for her research of wild chimpanzees in Tanzania.
SEE | Baboons gatecrash gather to bounce off the Pringle Bay family trampoline
The BBBAG accused the municipality of a “one size fits all” approach, disregarding that Betty’s Bay is part of the Kogelberg Biosphere, a protected area that is a World Heritage Site and part of UNESCO’s Man and Biosphere (MAB) program.
The guidelines for managing our baboon troop “are not in line with the spirit of the Kogelberg biosphere,” Oxford said.
The group believes that baboons can be better managed if the municipality and residents dispose of human food waste, which attracts the baboons to residential areas.
Jane Goodall communicates with the chimpanzee Nana at the Magdeburg Zoo in Germany.
Residents of Betty’s Bay have recently joined forces with Cape Town animal activist Ryno Engelbrecht and are expected to file an application in the Western Cape Superior Court later this week to review the baboon management operations of the municipalities of Cape Town and Overstrand.
Earlier this month, the city of Cape Town capitulated to Engelbrecht’s demands to return the much-loved Kataza (also known as SK11) to its range at Slangkop in Kommetjie.
Engelbrecht had approached the high court accusing the City Council of animal cruelty.
READ | Kataza the baboon returns to his native troop in Slangkop – in good health
Attenborough concludes his letter by saying that he hopes that “you and the community will be successful in your campaign to find a solution that unites the residents of this special place and respects your wild neighbors.”
Attenborough has a string of accolades to her name and recently released her latest documentary, A life on our planet.
In the documentary, he suggests that the destruction of the wild areas of the earth, which he has witnessed in his life, is a crime.
