Meet Shanti, one of IPPL's
Sanctuary Gibbons
On the banks of the Olifants River (Elephant River) in South Africa's Northern Province lives a remarkable woman who started an even more remarkable animal adventure several years ago which has led to the founding of C.A.R.E. (Center for Animal Rehabilitation and Education).
Rita Miljo did not always live on the banks of this river in what must be one of the warmest places in South Africa. She was once a career woman who lived and worked in Johannesburg and who literally used to fly places when the mood took her, in her own small aeroplane. On one of her trips to Namibia she met Bobby and her life, as she knew it, changed.
Bobby was a young female chacma baboon who was kept at an army base as a mascot. She was in an unhappy state and was not getting the care she deserved. Before she knew it, Rita heard herself say that she would take Bobby and look after her. Bobby came home with Rita who soon realized how intelligent this indigenous primate was.
Other people heard of Rita and Bobby and, before she knew it, people were phoning her for advice on how to rear orphaned baboons and several landed on her doorstep for fostering. After observing them and watching how inbred some of their behavior was, Rita soon realized that she would be able to rehabilitate these animals and decided to move to Phalaborwa where the baboons would be closer to nature and would be able to see wild baboons, hippos, elephants, predators, crocodiles and other animals and get used to them as they would be common sights in the wild.
And so C.A.R.E. was born.
The rehabilitation center is situated close to the mining town of Phalaborwa and, because of the need created by man, has grown and grown. In South Africa baboons and vervet monkeys were labelled as vermin. This is slowly changing to "problem" animals which, in lay terms, means much the same as vermin as they are still not protected at all.
People, especially farmers, who have these primates on their properties are allowed to hunt, poison or eradicate them in any way they see fit. One of the most common sights in muti shops (traditional medicine shops used by some of the indigenous populations) are baboon and monkey skins, skulls, skeletons, hands etc.
Amongst some of the people it is great sport to shoot and eradicate whole troops to get hold of the babies because, after all, they're so cute. The only time it is illegal to keep one of these primates is if it is alive. Then permits - which are not given - are needed. Until Rita arrived on the scene, orphaned, injured and confiscated baboons were euthanized - usually shot - by Nature Conservation officials.
Rita did not have an easy time when she started. She ran into the solid wall of red tape, disbelief and officialdom wherever she went. "They used to say, leave her, she's old, let her think she can rehabilitate baboons. She'll soon see she can't," Rita laughingly recalls.
Rita did release a troop. "When I phoned and said I had a troop ready and wanted to release them at a certain site, officialdom was amazed. They first would not allow me and then, probably thinking my baboons would die in the first week in the wild, said OK and gave permission," Rita said. She and her small troop (so that each one could be easily monitored) and a nature conservation student set out for Letaba Ranch and literally lived with the baboons for several months before decreasing the monitoring frequency.
These baboons are still doing well several years on. So well, in fact, that one of them was leading a wild troop of about 100 with which they had merged, a few months ago when they were last observed.
Rita and her work are largely ignored by most of the South African officialdom who often treat her as an irritation and often try to put obstacles in her way.
"No government subsidy has ever been forthcoming and, while waiting for a fund raising number, we are totally dependent on the generosity of the public to keep our center operational. This is often an uphill battle which we are determined to win," Rita explained.
Behavioral scientists and primatologists - some in South Africa but the bulk from overseas - have lauded her work and have sent students and scientists to C.A.R.E. to observe what is being done.
At present there is sometimes a moratorium on the inter-provincial movement of these primates - depending on the "fashion" of the time - with the question raised every now and then on whether there are sub-species of the chacma baboon, even though some highly qualified scientists have disputed this.
C.A.R.E., however, has become one of the few refuges for these "unwanted little people". Every one of the more than a hundred baboons that has passed through C.A.R.E.'s hands has been traumatized. The orphans have had to witness their mothers and other troop members' deaths, the older ones have either been injured or have been kept on chains, often with their canines pulled out so that they are less "vicious" and sometimes, in horribly small containers like water drums where their faeces have been harvested for traditional medical cures.
At C.A.R.E. we are constantly waging a battle to have the status of our primates improved. We have pointed out that these animals which are so readily sent to research laboratories all over the world, have not even been counted. We are told that there are "plenty" left in the wild while we know that their numbers are declining.
But the picture we paint is not all doom and gloom. We have baboons that are happy and we know that the future we are trying to offer them back in the wild is better than a future tied to a chain or in a zoo.
Last year C.A.R.E. also celebrated a first in South Africa, and maybe even a world first for the chacma baboon. We, together with SAAV (South Africans for the Abolition of Vivisection) and several other animal protection groups, managed to free eight baboons from a research laboratory in the center of Johannesburg. They had all been trapped as adults in the wild.
Of these eight baboons one needed extensive oral surgery as his teeth were in a shocking condition after ten years spent in the laboratory eating the wrong kind of food. Toby, as we called him, did not recover from the surgery and died the day we left with our, now seven, charges to Phalaborwa.
The preparation of the whole move took months. We had to get the baboons used to us and teach them that we were not the "baddies". We gave them all names to show their individualities (and to irritate the scientists who identified them by the numbers tattooed across their chests) and we got to know them.
We had to build a sanctuary for them that would be like heaven after the hell they had lived in for that decade. We had to give them something better than a normal zoo. And we had to fight the skepticism we had thrown at us by some "experts" who said we would never be able to reteach these baboons any of their baboon skills.
We moved them in November last year. In that first week tragedy struck. Gerald, the large alpha male, died of a heart attack caused by heat stroke, despite attempts to resuscitate him. And so there were only six left.
Within a week of their move they were grooming each other again. They were vocalizing and they were communicating with the wild troop of baboons that have made C.A.R.E. a main stopover in a busy baboon day. Now, July, we have put the first two baboons, Nathan and Rhona, together by opening up their enclosures. They spend their days together and even sleep on the same platform.
Our next plan is to put Sybil and Dibs together. Sybil had lost all her hair in the labs because of stress and had even escaped by jumping through a second story window (closed) at the lab. She was found in a deserted hospital ward.
Sybil, we had been told, would never adapt. She tried to hide from strangers and we put a blanket on top of her small research lab cage inside her big enclosure for her to hide under. Until the end of June Sybil did hide from strangers. Then, one fine day, she tossed the blanket off her cage. Since then, she has not needed to go inside her small cage to hide anymore.
Guinny and Winston will be last in line to be put together. "We are moving forward slowly so that we can all learn and adapt," as Rita says.
Our secret hope would be that we would be able to completely rehabilitate these primates. Whether that will ever happen - or be allowed to happen by officialdom - remains to be seen.
At C.A.R.E. no animal is ever turned away. Rita has rescued hippos from farm pools, she has reared lion cubs and started, together with IFAW, the first true lion haven in South Africa on a nearby game farm. We have birds, bush babies, meerkats, warthogs, jackals and even some reptiles waiting for summer and release time!
We have also started an exciting new venture. The samango monkey is so endangered it's on the red data list. Rita had reared two little females. They have now been joined by a male and Rita is undertaking a Samango breeding program. Only time will tell how successful she will be in this project.
Every day at C.A.R.E. is different. Every day is exciting, sometimes nail-biting ( will we be given enough food for all our charges today?) and always totally focussed towards the well-being of the animals. We are always on the lookout for safe release sites and for ways to improve the lot of our primates. We are constantly on the lookout for funds to keep going. Above all, we are determined to help our primates and to see that they don't land up in the same boat as Africa's great apes.
IPPL has sent a $500 grant to help with CARE's wonderful work with a species that is not generally appreciated. Baboons have wonderfully complex social structures. In many places they are considered "pests" because they have learned to co-exist with the humans who are taking over THEIR homes.
CARE has a site on the World Wide Web for those wanting to learn more. Its address is http://www.webspinner.co.za/care
If you would like to help CARE's wonderful work, please
sent a check to IPPL ear-marked "For CARE" and we will consolidate donations
and send them as a single bank draft. If you would like to get in direct
contact with CARE, please contact the group at PO Box 244, Paardekraal
1752, South Africa.
Meet Shanti, one of IPPL's
Sanctuary Gibbons