| Bart the Baboon is doomed | |
|
|
Nature Conservation Corporation is the private company that is hired by Cape Town to manage their Baboon population and as of yet, Bart has managed to avoid them. The head of the company, Dean Ferreira, said it was not easy to dart in residential areas or at UCT, given the number of people around. Bart has previously been darted and caged to fit him with a monitoring devise for a programme run by Baboon Matters. Jenny Trethowan, who used to run the programme, said she was disappointed the authorities had decided to put Bart down as the private Wildcliff Nature Reserve near Riversdale was willing to take him. "He is TB-free and he could have been monitored to see how he did with the new troop. All the obstacles could have been overcome," she said. The putting down of baboons has been called “a very last resort” yet is set to continue and the many letters asking to “halt the culling” from local residents to Mayor Dan Plato have fallen on deaf ears. UCT researcher Justin O'Riain gives his "qualified support" to Bart's being put down, and believes CapeNature's policy of not moving baboons off the peninsula is reasonable. Bart has shown an inability to integrate with his own kind and now lives a solitary life, habitually raiding and striking terror through the campus. Comments
(4)
 written by sara , September 16, 2009
They should just move him if there is place for him in a good environment, instead of just culling!
Votes: +0
report abuse
vote down
vote up
Isn't this the human predicament we continuously create. We destroy their natural environment and then we punish them for it.
Votes: +0
I agree with Ceciel we must support them in this altered environment which we have created and forced them to live in. As for the alien vegetation what about the alien people. How many in the Cape making these environmental decisions are genetically from the Cape. Life evolves things change and we must adapt to those changes. It would be a wonderful project enhancing the awareness that all living creatures have value and must be dealt with compassionately. God Bless Kathlen report abuse
vote down
vote up
My heart really goes out to these poor baboons - we are the problem as we have encroached onto their home.
Votes: +3
My thought, to put out there and to create an opportunity for someone, is to give back to the baboons and to do this through planting mature fruit and nut trees in the areas where Nature Conservation wants to 'detain' them. By having wholesome food accessable in their natural habitat will create harmony again for the baboons and humans. The argument of not allowing "ailien vegetation" into the forests and fynbos areas does not hold ground any longer with climate changes etc. The need for any green foliage is welcome and if it will bring dignity back to the baboons, great. They deserve it! This could become a very exciting project and can bring about much awareness to many areas of life. We can also all benefit from this wise quote : "Be the change you wish to see" (Ghandi) Thank you. Ceciel report abuse
vote down
vote up
|
Bart the Baboon is hanging out at Cape Town’s UCT where he is raiding the bins for their fine pickings; not surprising seeing as he is known for raiding bins, crops and houses.
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Show/hide comments
In private parks and game reserves there are numerous examples of gadgets, fencing etc. that work to keep anything at bay, from ants to badgers to apes and leopard. Somehow these reserves lure lots of humans into these animal habitats that actually PAY to go and spend some time there!
What about a feeding park? Inside a suburb? A kind lanscaper, a nursery or (God forbid) the City Counsel could create a green lung area with good food plants in it, preferally indigenous. All the caring people can then donate food (just take it from the bins) and have it dispensed through a "passive feeding wall" where there is absolutely no association between the human & animal.
Our primary journey on this planet is to integrate ourselves into it as part of nature, and most of us have failed. Bart the baboon is showing us our future, teaching us how to survive on garbage. With our open borders we already have millions of humans constantly streaming into what is left of our country, living under worse conditions than Bart!
There will soon be only three tribes left on our planet: The FutureMinders, the EvilDoers, and the Innocents. Bart belongs to all three, depending on how we want to look at his precious life and his behaviour. Our challenge is not to untrain him from what we have taught him to do, but to untrain ourselves and place ourselvs into one of the three tribes. We should do this soon. By doing this we will know who we are and where we belong.
May Bart have the best of all the love, beauty and caring that we can come up with.