Cape Town - In a bid to deter raiding in the Tokai area, two baboons were put down on Thursday.
But with the death toll rapidly rising, activists are calling this “systematic culling” a senseless exercise.
According to the city, the two male baboons, known as TK21 and TK22, were persistently raiding the lower Tokai area, despite attempts to rehabilitate them.
They added that it had become clear to field rangers that the males were neither deterred by the presence of monitors or the use of paintball guns.
“By contrast, the rest of the troop – including sub-adult males, adult females and their offspring – have been easily deterred by field rangers and the electric fence around the suburb of Zwaanswyk.”
The city said the Baboon Technical Team was offered little choice other than to euthanise these baboons in the interest of the rest of the troop.
The city said growth rates of troops in Tokai were higher than anywhere else on the Peninsula and that the removal of habitual raiders did not threaten the sustainability of the population.
But Jenni Trethowan, founder of the Baboon Matters trust, said killing the alpha males was not helping and was detrimental to the troop as a whole as it left them vulnerable.
“Baboons have been euthanised since 2009 and we are still seeing raiding,” said Trethowan yesterday.
She is demanding stats on the success of euthanising the animals but said she had not heard or seen anything from the city.
“If this really was working, you would think they would want to share it with us,” she said.
She noted that in many instances younger males would just take over leadership and continue raiding.
“The dominant males will always get the easiest food, and that will come from going into houses and cars,” she said. - Cape Argus