Baboons!

A South African photographer documents the myth and the reality.
May 2005

Attie Gerber captures an obliging couple of chacma baboons enjoying a grooming session in South Africa's Credefort Dome region.

Documentary filmmaker Dr. Attie Gerber has spent many months among the chacma baboons, the "dog-faced little bear" (Papio cynocephalus ursinus), of South Africa. The result: Baboons: Tales, Traits and Troubles, a wonderful coffee-table book full of marvelous, sensitive portraits of these large, savanna-dwelling monkeys.

The book is also a fond exploration of the baboon as a native South African cultural icon that has made its mark on the Afrikaans language. "Baboon" (bobbejaan in Afrikaans) appears in many place names and vernacular plant names. And the Afrikaans phrase "to be baboonized" (gebobbejaaniseer) is a colorful reference to poor souls who have sat in so many meetings that their backsides are calloused like a baboon's!

Finally, Baboons is a tribute to the hard work of Rita Miljo, the founder of CARE (Centre for Animal Rehabilitation and Education) in South Africa's Limpopo Province. She came to South Africa from Germany in 1953 because of her love for wild animals and established CARE in 1989 on a piece of land along the Olifants River that she had purchased back in 1963. CARE works with many types of wild animals but specializes in rehabilitating baboons.

South Africa's premier baboon sanctuary

Ms. Miljo released her first group of rehabilitated baboons in 1994, to the amazement of skeptics. She has a well-thought-out, intensive resocialization process for the traumatized animals who find their way to her sanctuary. The baboons who reach her may have survived lab experiments (live baboons can still be sold internationally for research purposes) or escaped the hands of local muti traders (dealers in traditional South African remedies, which include animal parts like baboon skin, hands, or skulls). Ms. Miljo has since released a number of troops, including the release of two troops into the Vredefort Dome conservation area in 2002, where Dr. Gerber first met her.

Social interactions are at the heart of baboon troop life.

But Ms. Miljo worries about declines in baboon populations. Often, she notes, one does not realize that a species is vanishing until it is to late. Baboons reproduce slowly - only one infant every 15-18 months, and mortality can be as high as 80 percent for young ones. Their natural habitat is shrinking, and they face frequent assaults (including shooting and poisonings) from South African farmers whare are more inclined to see the baboons as marauding "vermin" (as they are classified by law in some areas) rather than as resourceful, intelligent animals who have a right of priority to the use of their native land.

Show You CARE!

If you would like to make a donation Rita Miljo's CARE sanctuary to help her protect the baboons of South Africa, please send a check, payable to IPPL, to IPPL, P.O. Box 766, Summerville, SC 29484, USA. Please mark your donation "For CARE" so that your gift will be correctly allocated to this project. We can also accept credit card donations (Visa, MasterCard, AMEX, Discover); all we need is the card number, the expiration date, and the name on the card. Or donate online at the "Renewals/New Memberships/Donations" link and put "For CARE" in the comments field.

How to buy Attie Gerber's
Baboons: Tales, Traits and Troubles

Baboons: Tales, Traits and Troubles is available from www.kalahari.com, the South African equivalent of Amazon Books. IPPL has been in touch with the company and its customer service department asks you to contact KalahariSupport2@kalahari.netif you run into problems with their Web site.

Titus, the dominant male, stands on guard from a prime vantage point at the Vredefort Dome. HELP SAVE THE BABOONS OF SOUTH AFRICA The 35 rehabilitated baboons released by CARE into the Vredefont Dome region in 2002, as documented by Attie Gerber, have been taken by CARE back into captivity; since the animals' release, one of the two troops was poisoned (six baboons died) and two baboons have been shot. Even though the region was in the process of applying for World Heritage Site classification, the animals did not find it to be a place of refuge, CARE is unable to prevent landowners or hunters from killing the baboons because, according to the law, baboons have been classified as "vermin" and, as such, may be killed without even a permit. CARE has successfully had the law changed in two of the nine provinces in South Afirca-but all baboons should be spared this persection. Please write to the South African Minister for Agriculture and ask that South African law be revised to remove the label of "vermin" from the country's baboons. Express your concern that, even in an area like the Vredefort Dome that should have offered these animals some protection, they have been poisoned and shot. Ask that these native South African primates be protected and that positive solutions be found to alleviate conflicts between baboons and humans. Mr. Ndleleni Duma Minister of Agriculture, Conservation, Environment and Tourism North-West Province South Africa E-mail: epilane@nwpg.gov.za