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Community baboon monitoring project in Cape Town claims pushback from authorities

Community baboon monitoring project in Cape Town claims pushback from authorities
Tamsin Metelerkamp
By Tamsin Metelerkamp
25 Jul 2024
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The nonprofit Green Group Simon’s Town says its community baboon monitoring project for the Seaforth troop on the Cape Peninsula is facing pushback from local authorities. These claims come at a time when concerns have been raised about the potential culling of baboons in the region.

Since late 2023, the nonprofit organisation Green Group Simon’s Town has been running a community baboon monitor project to minimise conflict between the local Seaforth troop and urban residents. Now, however, the founder of the Green Group, Luana Pasanisi, claims that state authorities are putting pressure on their monitors to “stand down”.

The Seaforth troop frequents the natural areas around Simon’s Town and sometimes enters the urban area, largely due to attractants like unsecured food waste, according to local activists. The group isn’t monitored by NCC Environmental Services, the city-contracted service provider for baboon management. As it is a splinter group that split off from the Smitswinkel troop in 2022, the Cape Peninsula Baboon Management Joint Task Team has stated that there are no resources for managing the group within the existing budget for NCC Environmental Services.

This motivated Green Group Simon’s Town to fundraise within the community to finance baboon monitors of their own.

According to Pasanisi, representatives of NCC Environmental Services and CapeNature recently approached one of the Green Group monitors and told him he could face a fine for “herding” baboons, based on an Instagram video in which he was fulfilling his monitoring duties.

“They threatened my one monitor… for apparently looking like he's herding baboons,” said Pasanisi. “We don't use a herding technique… We don't have to, we just watch them.”

Pasanisi emphasised that Green Group rangers used non-violent approaches to monitor the movement of the baboons and to reduce human-baboon conflict. She expressed surprise that their efforts were being targeted by the authorities, given the high number of cases in which local people used violent methods such as sjamboks and pellet guns against baboons without facing legal consequences.

One such incident took place in September last year. Daily Maverick reported that a Seaforth resident entered a home that three baboons had broken into and opened fire, killing one and wounding the other two. While the Cape of Good Hope SPCA laid criminal charges against the shooter, the National Prosecuting Authority declined to prosecute as it said “there were no prospects of a successful prosecution in the case”.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Juvenile baboon fatally shot in ‘distressing’ Seaforth incident — SPCA launches urgent investigation

Read more in Daily Maverick: Cape of Good Hope SPCA ‘sickened’ after second wounded baboon is euthanised in a week

Pasanisi said that CapeNature had instructed Green Group Simon’s Town to “stand down” its community baboon monitoring project until it received a permit for herding baboons. However, she claimed that when she applied for a permit, she was told it would not be issued unless she agreed to a set of standard operating protocols that had not yet been drafted or implemented. 

“They want me to sign something they haven’t even drafted… It’s very unprofessional and loose – what are you making me agree to?” said Pasanisi.

When Daily Maverick reached out to the Cape Peninsula Baboon Management Joint Task Team – which is made up of CapeNature, SANParks and the City of Cape Town – about the Green Group Simon’s Town’s concerns, it stated that the outcome of the organisation’s application for a permit would be finalised “once the standard operating procedure for community-based monitoring projects has been finalised”. 

“Green Group Simon’s Town has been informed as such on 3 July 2024. Thus, the application has not been denied, and is still in process, pending finalisation of the standard operating procedure,” said the joint task team.

On the matter of the Green Group ranger who was approached by the authorities, it stated: “CapeNature has received information that one of the monitors of the Green Group Simon’s Town allegedly acted illegally in terms of the Nature Conservation Ordinance 19 of 1974. This matter is being investigated.”

Community mobilisation


According to Lee-Anne Roux, a business-owner in Simon’s Town, Green Group’s community baboon monitor project has been very successful in managing human-baboon conflict in the area. It has been coupled with a waste management initiative, spearheaded by the nonprofit organisation, that sees wet waste from many local restaurants removed and transported to local farmers for pig feed. This has reduced attractants for the baboons.

Read more in Daily Maverick: GLO with the flow – this is the Cape Town farm where children can ‘just be kids’

“With community participation, you can change the world. You can change your local biodiversity to be fair on everybody – to be fair on the people that live there and the wildlife that share your space. It’s so important to have that, and we've seen it with the community-funded projects like the Seaforth rangers. It's a completely different little world,” said Roux.

Both Pasanisi and Roux raised concerns about the possibility that the joint task team would authorise a cull of baboons in the Seaforth area.

“Everybody's on high alert. You can see on social media, everybody's up in arms about it,” said Roux.

Daily Maverick asked the joint task team if there was a plan to cull baboons from the Seaforth and CT2 troops, both of which are splinter groups that are managed by community monitor programmes rather than the city-funded service provider.

“The Cape Peninsula Baboon Management Joint Task Team is investigating solutions regarding both the Seaforth and CT2 troops. Once finalised, the decision will be communicated with the affected communities,” it responded.

According to Jenni Trethowan, founder of the nonprofit Baboon Matters, a city official told attendees of a Wynberg community meeting about baboon management in June that the joint task team was considering the option of euthanasia for the CT2 troop. About 22 baboons make up the Constantia-based troop.

Consternation over culling


It would not be the first time that authorities used the practice of culling in relation to Cape Peninsula baboon populations. As recently as 18 July, the joint task team informed the Cape Peninsula Civil Conservation group, a local nonprofit, that it had approved the euthanasia of three “raiding baboons” over the previous four weeks.

This was after the Cape Peninsula Civil Conservation group reached out to the joint task team about the disappearance of DG19 – or Creamy, as he was known among locals – a baboon from the Da Gama troop. Creamy was one of the baboons that was euthanised.



“The decision followed upon an assessment of the case histories of the three raiding baboons from the Waterfall, De Gama and Smitswinkel troops. The intervention is in line with the approved and adopted set of baboon management guidelines,” stated the joint task team in its response to the Cape Peninsula Civil Conservation group.

“The Cape Peninsula Baboon Management Joint Task Team is confident that these decisions, although difficult, are robust, rational and based on the best available information and scientific advice.”

The joint task team said that euthanasia was “one of several tools” in the baboon management “toolkit” included in the Baboon Strategic Management Plan.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Baboon activists launch legal action seeking better management of troops in the Cape

Baboon Matters has stated that the killing of “problem” baboons is not effective in keeping the animals out of urban areas, especially while there continue to be attractants for them. A more effective strategy involves baboon-proof bins and a better food waste management plan, according to the organisation. 

“If the city implemented their by-laws and fined people for poor waste management… where the baboons can come in and get easy access to food, we would see a reduction in attractants straight away,” said Trethowan.



Baboon Matters is one of four applicants that have approached the Western Cape Division of the High Court in Cape Town to hold local authorities accountable for the alleged failure to implement proposed baboon management strategies in the Cape Peninsula region. The legal action was launched in April, six months after the joint task team finalised a new strategic management plan for the local baboon populations. Public engagements around the plan have been ongoing since June 2022.

Trethowan claimed that there had been little progress towards implementing the stated objectives of the new plan, including the provision of baboon-proof bins and strategic fencing in affected areas. 

The termination of the existing Urban Baboon Programme, under which NCC Environmental Services is contracted, is scheduled for December. This will bring an end to the network of city-contracted rangers who are currently tasked with keeping baboons out of urban areas. There is no provision for the continuation of ranger services in the new plan.

Trethowan and other activists claim that the joint task team is considering culling – a strategy that should be a last resort – despite the lack of implementation of other baboon management measures.

The first court date for the case against the local authorities responsible for baboon management has been set down for 4 November. DM

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