A 13-year-old's urgent plea for better baboon management in Cape Town

Joshua Wynne, Kommetjie 

Dear City of Cape Town Council members, Cape Baboon Partnership, and others this may concern.

I would like to bring up my concerns regarding the current baboon management in the Deep South, and suggest more solutions.

My name is Joshua Wynne, I am 13 years old. I am a resident of Kommetjie and a baboon enthusiast.

My passion is to ensure the health and safety of baboons in their natural habitat. Unlike many others, I believe that problems like these can be solved through communication and collaboration. In recent times, I have noticed a change in the usual “monitoring” of baboons.

I strongly believe that the shooting of paintballs is unnecessary and harmful towards the conservation and monitoring of this precious species. Alongside that, on numerous occasions, I have come across paintballs in my yard and juvenile baboons covered in green and yellow paint. This is both upsetting and, in my view, unacceptable.

I think the best solution to this would involve educating the community by professionals, and explaining the nature of baboons, and how to appropriately keep baboons away from the houses in the community.

Next, I would employ gun-free monitors/guides to simply guide the baboons out of the village with water. Baboons do not like water, and it will affect them the same way a paintball would, serving as a safer, less reckless method.

Aside from that, I have personally witnessed troops being split up and shot at from all different directions, up to the point where they are beginning to lose their hair, because of the day-to-day stress they are put under.

This level of everyday stress is not sustainable for the baboons and is highly unnecessary.

Too many baboons have already died, and further killing them will only worsen things and pose another threat to this species, further endangering the biodiversity.

Like the quote: “We have to destroy the village in order to save it”, this idea that the euthanasia of splinter troops will save the general species, and solve the many problems caused by baboon-human interactions, is not only incorrect, but concerning; and suggests that the killing of baboons will now change from incidental to a normal occurrence.

This will not save them, nor will it save us. Not fixing a problem, but rather creating more. I think the whole concept of baboon monitoring should be rethought and redesigned.

There are many professionals, activists and baboon-loving citizens, especially in the Deep South. I propose that these individuals should be brought together to brainstorm and discuss new safe, healthy and sustainable ways of managing and monitoring baboons.

Together, as a community, I think that we could fix and solve any problems that come our way.

That can only be done by facing the problem head-on and through effective communication. Our baboons are in danger, and the only way to fix it is together as a community.

Let’s stop this mindless killing and take a step in the right direction.

Let’s fight for our baboons in a time when no one else will. Any improvements to the way baboons are handled and monitored will go a far way, not only for enthusiasts like myself, but also for the moving campaign toward baboon wellbeing.

We only have one chance to fix this broken system, let’s do it the right way. 

•Cape Peninsula Baboon Management Joint Task Team, responds: The Cape Peninsula Baboon Management Joint Task Team (CPBMJTT), consisting of representatives from SANParks, CapeNature, and the City of Cape Town, notes the letter. We are busy finalising the Action Plan that intends to operationalise the Cape Peninsula Baboon Strategic Management Plan and believe this will address the concerns raised by the young resident from Kommetjie.