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Rethinking the fence — exploring ecological buffering as a baboon management solution

21 May 2025

What is needed is a shift from punitive management to ecological rehabilitation, moving beyond conventional, ineffective management approaches and focusing on restoring the mountain ecosystem to meet the biological and ecological needs of baboons and other wildlife.

As baboons increasingly spend time in dense urban areas such as Simon’s Town on the Cape Peninsula, the contentious proposal to erect long fences along the boundaries of Table Mountain National Park and other natural spaces has resurfaced. But could a more innovative, ecologically grounded solution lie in extensive ecological buffering?

Rather than investing in costly and maintenance-heavy metal barriers, ecological buffering would include large, biodiverse, open patches and corridors of indigenous vegetation, living fences designed to meet baboons’ natural land and coastal dietary and safety needs while restoring ecological balance. Strategically planted forest and bushveld patches could provide baboons with year-round, high-quality natural forage and safe roosting sites, while simultaneously restoring degraded habitats and limiting their access to human-derived food sources.

Ecological buffering has been successfully implemented across Africa and globally to support and manage wildlife (either attracting or deterring it); in the case of primates, by restoring food sources, shelter, and consequently reducing human encroachment. Examples include Old Oyo National Park in Nigeria for baboons and patas monkeys, Kibale in Uganda for chimpanzees, and India’s Jim Corbett Park through extensive passive rewilding.

Why do Cape baboons choose urban areas, despite paintballs?

According to behavioural ecology, animals make decisions that increase their reproductive success, a concept known as fitness. Optimal Foraging Theory predicts that animals favour foraging strategies that maximise energy gain per unit time, choosing foods that are high in calories and easy to access or process. Risk-sensitive foraging models further suggest that animals may tolerate higher risks, such as harassment and even injury, when the energetic payoff is substantial.

In urban environments like Simon’s Town, human waste, restaurant scraps and unsecured bins provide a steady supply of calorie-dense, easily accessible food. This makes the area highly attractive, despite deterrents such as paintballs.

From an ecological perspective, paintballs are simply factored into the cost-benefit equation. If the benefit (food) outweighs the risk (paintballs), foraging continues. This helps explain why the use of paintballs is failing.

baboon A chacma baboon forages on a natural patch. (Photo: Corne Nel)

Degraded habitats and the urban lure

Baboons forage in dense urban areas like Simon’s Town not only due to high-calorie, easily accessible human food sources, but also because the urban space offers relatively safe roosting sites, such as high rooftops, particularly when baboons’ natural habitat has been degraded. Years of alien vegetation clearing, repeated arson wildfires and the lack of reforestation efforts have stripped the mountain of essential foraging and safe sleeping sites. Snaring, poaching and other disturbances have further reduced the safety of the natural range. With fewer resources and safe roosting sites in the wild, baboons are drawn to towns where perceived threats are lower and energetic rewards are higher.

Male baboons seek abundant food to grow stronger and defend the troop, while females prioritise safety to protect and raise offspring. These are not random actions but reflect a refined evolutionary strategy developed over two million years to maximise reproductive success.

Ideal free distribution model

This model predicts that animals will distribute themselves across food patches, taking into account resource abundance while preventing competition. Thus, removing one troop from a high-reward urban area without addressing the underlying attractants, simply reduces competition and opens a gap for another troop to fill. Without habitat restoration and systematic food-proofing in town, any removals are unlikely to produce lasting results and will perpetuate a cycle of displacement and return.

baboon The ideal free distribution model. (Image: Wageningen University & Research)

What then?

The path ahead requires moving beyond conventional, ineffective management approaches and instead focusing on restoring the mountain ecosystem to meet the biological and ecological needs of baboons and other wildlife. This could include establishing large ecological buffer zones made of extensive patches of indigenous, fruit- and seed-bearing vegetation to provide year-round foraging opportunities. Restoration efforts should also prioritise the reintroduction and protection of natural sleeping sites and roosting structures. In parallel, clear and enforceable policies must be implemented to reduce urban attractants, thereby decreasing the incentive for wildlife to enter the human-dominated space.

What unites all stakeholders, whether baboon “lovers” or “haters”, is a shared desire to see baboons thriving in their natural habitats. However, this goal will remain a simple desire unless we shift from punitive management to ecological rehabilitation.

Policy failure and the need for transformative thinking

The current approach outlined in the Cape Peninsula Baboon Strategic Management Plan, while presented as progressive, holistic and comprehensive, falls short of introducing truly innovative methods that align with both legal and ethical obligations. The Wildlife Animal Protection Forum South Africa submitted thoughtful proposals aimed at integrating animal wellbeing and a duty of care into the plan. These included recommendations for the creation of extensive wildlife corridors. However, the joint task team (JTT), consisting of CapeNature, SANParks and the City of Cape Town, dismissed those proposals, instead approving a management framework that remains rooted in repressive and demonstrably ineffective practices.

The strategy presented reflects a broader failure in conservation approaches, rooted in dominant mindsets that build walls, prioritise exclusionary approaches and violence, rather than promoting healing and ecological restoration. In contrast, a holistic approach to conservation would focus on a duty of care, reciprocity, coexistence and habitat rehabilitation.

Moving forward

Ecological buffering offers a pathway to restore balance between humans and baboons by aligning management strategies with the species’ evolutionary and ecological needs. Unlike the prevailing approach, buffering is grounded in restoration. It replaces a morally indefensible, ecologically irrational and economically wasteful war on wildlife with a constructive, science-based framework for coexistence.

As communities remain divided, stress levels rise on both sides, and baboons continue to be killed, the underlying ecological imbalance only worsens. Redirecting available resources towards habitat rehabilitation, effective enforcement of municipal regulations, and the implementation of evidence-based strategies rooted in behavioural ecology, would offer a far more sustainable and ethical path forward. DM

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