Baboon Management Overstrand

Publicly available monthly reports are produced about the baboon management project. These contain raiding activity and out of town records of the baboon troops in Hermanus (Voelklip Troop) and Pringle Bay (Pringle Bay Troop), as well as a breakdown of hotline calls for the month. In addition to this, monthly, seasonal and daily trends of baboon behaviour are reported on.

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This monthly report covers the period from 1 to 31 May 2020.  Management of the Voëlklip Troop in Hermanus and the Pringle Bay Troop are discussed.  During this month the use of Virtual Fence continued as the primary method of managing the Voëlklip Troop, but paintball markers still continued to be used for backup.  Management of the Pringle Bay Troop continued through the use of paintball markers only.

The Voëlklip Troop’s time out of town was 98.8% this month.  This is a slight increase over the April, although generally baboons tend to increase their time in town during winter.   The Vogelgat Troop also showed a decreased presence in town this month.  This was evident from a decrease in the number of reports to the hotline.  Most raids consisted of only a few individuals being in town, as opposed to the whole troop.   HWS is currently not mandated to manage this troop, but when resources allow (when the Voëlklip Troop is out of town), the baboon rangers assist in moving them back to their natural environment.  By providing this additional assistance to this troop, HWS is attempting to prevent individuals from learning bad raiding behaviours from each other.

The percentage time out of town for the Pringle Bay Troop increased slightly from 90.8% in April to 91.5 % in May.  As was the case last month, the Hangklip Troop often moved north into the home range of the Pringle Bay Troop.   The Hangklip Troop is much larger than the Pringle Bay Troop, so the effect of this movement was that the Pringle Bay Troop was pushed up against the urban edge and spent more time in town than they would under normal conditions.  Once again, the troop predominantly slept at the Professor Sleep Site, utilizing this site for 22 nights.  This sleep site is less than 100m from the urban edge and therefore provided the baboons with very easy access into town.   This sleep site therefore allows the baboons to access the urban environment when the rangers are not on duty (early mornings and late evenings).  This month they regularly took advantage of this opportunity and raided town late in the evenings and again early the next morning.