THE SPCA IS ENDANGERING THE JOBS OF 50 PEOPLE BY MONKEYING AROUND WITH BABOON MATTERS

 Dear Baboon Lovers,

            About 10 years ago baboons from mountainous areas rampaged through residential parts of the City of Cape Town, threatening people, damaging houses, badly injuring pets like dogs and destroying anything edible in people’s gardens.

People were prisoners in their own homes until the monitors, employed to keep them out of the urban areas were armed with paintball guns – not to shoot them, but just to scare them away. This worked very effectively and where I live near Kommetjie the situation went from having baboons all over our houses and gardens on a regular basis to virtually none at all. My wife even had the pleasure of twice having a big male beside her in our kitchen. Their canines are longer than a lion’s so she could have been badly mauled.

          Now the goody goods at the Cape of Good Hope SPCA, who appear to have great difficulty defining exactly what cruelty is, have decided that these paintball guns that they originally sanctioned are actually cruel. This has made the work of the monitors, who are employed by a private company contracted to the City Council, totally ineffective. Without the paintball guns to scare these primates they just give the monitors the two fingers and carry on raiding homes and gardens just as they used to do.

          A spokesperson told me that unfortunately the City had no choice but to comply with this decision, as the National Council for the Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, being the oversight authority for animal welfare, had withdrawn its support for the use of paintball guns on baboons, declaring this method “cruel to animals.”

           Helpfully Belinda Abraham, the Communications Manager of the Cape of Good Hope SPSA “clarified” the position by saying that the SPCA has not “banned or prohibited the use of paintball guns” but had merely withdrawn their endorsement of their use.  

          To show how mixed up the SPCA is about the use of these guns she added: “A method that was reviewed and supported previously may no longer be relevant, appropriate or humane now. The SPCA will not support methods that are considered inhumane and cruel or that have insufficient supporting information.”

          How many other inhumane methods of controlling animals has the SPCA supported or ignored for years before backtracking?

          The SPCA believes “there may be alternative methods” of dealing with the baboons that “can be used to achieve the same outcome, which have not been explored.” But as it does not disclose what these might be the inference is that if they do exist the SPCA has no idea what they are.

          However Ald. Marion Nieuwoudt Cape Town’s Mayoral Committee Member for the Environment told me that as there was no effective alternative to the use of paintball guns they might have to withdraw the baboon monitors. “This will have an impact on the properties and lifestyle of residents living in areas close to baboons’ natural habitat as we anticipate that baboons will frequent these areas more often,” she said.

          Will this mean that some 50 or more people will be added to the already huge number of unemployed in our country?  People’s Lives Matter more than baboons but not in Cape Town evidently.

          The various parties will hopefully meet soon to sort out this mess that is entirely due to the SPCA’s incompetence.

          The mixed up thinking at the SPCA is not doing the baboons any favours either. Their numbers have increased from 350 in 2009 to 430 in 2021, but the way things are going they could soon be on the decline.

Jenni Trethoven, founder of the Baboon Matters Trust revealed on the Trust’s blog that when the Covid lock down began in March last year she was optimistic that there would be a radical decrees in baboon activity in urban areas, but the reverse happened.

No doubt because the baboon monitors were not working at all during lockdown or at a much lower level and baboon troops had not yet heard of the Virus.

Baboons, she wrote, have been visiting the village of Kommetjie where she lives almost every day since then and “sadly incidents of shooting at baboons with pellet guns, shotguns and paintball guns increased as did the number of dog attacks on baboons.”

Dogs attack baboons at their peril. Male baboons have ripped even the most ferocious ones apart causing thousands of rand in vet bills for the owners of those that survived.

In May a baboon belonging to the Simonstown troop was shot dead by a pellet gun and that was believed to be as a result of the withdrawal of the monitors. 

So the evidence is abundantly clear that what the SPCA is doing by classifying paintball guns in this case as cruel is having an affect that is the opposite of what the Society stands for. And is it going to compensate residents for any damage done by the bad behaviour of baboons?

In the short time since the monitors have been rendered ineffective a dog on our estate near Kommetjie has been badly mauled by baboons resulting in a heavy vet bill for the own. How many more times will this sort of thing have to happen before the monitors are once more empowered to do their job effectively?

Regards,

Jon, a lover of baboons that know their place – in the wild not in our garden or our house.

P.S. Baboon lovers expect people like me and my wife to have desert gardens so there is nothing like vegetables, fruit trees or anything else that might attract them, bearing in mind that they eat just about everything and seldom come in just ones and twos. Bird feeders are also out because they eat seed as well and they will rip apart anything it might be in. Our little dog would have to be kept inside at all times especially when we are not at home and every opening window would have to have bars on it. Our house would also have to have reinforced gutters that don’t collapse when baboons swing on them. If the SPCA has its way this is what it will be like for a lot of us living in the City of Good Hope? We’ve had some experience of this before the advent of paintball guns and WE CERTAINLY DON’T WANT IT REPEATED.

P.P.S. Ironically while this baboon business was going on the City has been updating its animal-keeping bylaws to ensure that pets like dogs, cats etc are not a source of danger or a nuisance.

         

 

ROLL UP, ROLL UP, TO SUNNY SOUTH AFRICA WHERE IT'S OPEN SEASON FOR MURDERERS & RAPISTS

Tina Joemat-Petterson

 Dear Readers,
          If you or any of your relatives ever get murdered or raped in South Africa don’t expect the perpetrators to get convicted any time soon, if at all.  The DNA testing backlog is increasing at such an alarming rate that there seems no hope of our *Keystone SA Cops (SAPS) ever getting anywhere near catching up.

          Thousand of criminals of all kinds are laughing at a system that can’t produce enough DNA evidence to convict them. The backlog at the National Forensic Science labs has just jumped from 117 000 cases in December to a shocking 173 000. According to Brig.Vish Naude the National Police spokesperson, about 70% of these numbers involve rape with murder accounting for a high proportion of the remaining 30%.

          No wonder the USA has issued a travel warning to its citizens that South Africa is no place for a holiday if you and your family hope to return in one piece.

          However scary the figures are we don’t have to worry too much because the problem is in the good hands of Tina Joemat- Petterson.  She became Chairperson of the Government’s Portfolio Committee on Police in 2019 based no doubt on her reputation for honesty and an unblemished record as Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries (2009-2014) and then Minister of Minerals and Energy (2014 -2017).

          You could not possibly have a person with dubious skeletons in their cupboard heading this important Police Committee could you? 

          But like many of the African National Congress’ (ANC) recycled ministers Tina’s history in these top jobs is picturesque to say the least. While in charge of Agriculture she famously said: “You can’t have mud slinging in agriculture.” Unfortunately it seems she was wrong and some of the mud stuck on her.

          As a result of complaints from the opposition Democratic Alliance party the Public Protector twice found her guilty in 2012 and 2014 of recklessly dealing with state funds and services resulting in wasteful expenditure in the fishing industry and not using public funds reasonably when it came to her accommodation expenses.

          What more could you want as a reference for somebody to head the Committee on Police? Cyril you must be so proud of this choice or is he perhaps ‘shocked’ as usual.

          While she was the Minister of Energy the mud slinging continued and a mere 10-million barrels of the country’s emergency oil reserves mysteriously disappeared. This time the Public Protector found that this former school teacher was mislead by the former boss of the Strategic Fuel Fund Association. I could not establish what happened after that, but who cares it’s only more taxpayers money down the drain.

           This was so typical of the ANC to expect a Minister, who got mucky in Agriculture to suddenly be an expert in the Energy field that is rife with big time, international crooks.

          To emphasise the state our police forensics are in the SAPS has just put an advertisement in the jobs section of the Sunday Times for no less than 133 Forensic Warrant officers (salary R304 851 per annum) to be stationed in various parts of the country working in labs or doing other aspects of forensics.

          Is this what Tina meant when she said the National Forensic Oversight Board (NFOB), which clearly has been doing a great job up to now, must find solutions to the long standing backlogs problem.

          Our Minister with the Hat Bheke Cele, who heads the Police, evidently believes that giving more cushy jobs to the boys, or girls, will solve the problem. He recently appointed 10 members to the NFOB Board. He sure knows how to pick them. Benedicta Monama was made a board member in spite of her dodgy background in other government departments only to be removed by Bheke for non attendance of more than three consecutive meetings.

          Presumably if she had had the sense to miss just two or perhaps three, but not consecutively, she would be still there. 

How many of them know anything at all about forensics is anybody’s guess. As long as they fit the description of cadre employees that is all that matters.

Regards,

Jon, an Investigative Journalist and Forensic Expert of note.

P.S. Have you heard the story about the best part of re-cycling? It’s when you are going down hill on your way home. In the ANC’s case it is no joke.

 

*The Keystone Cops were humorous, incompetent policemen featured in silent film, slapstick comedies. One of the stars was my namesake Bud Abbott. When can we expect to see our President Cyril Ramaphosa featured in a similar film with our Keystone Cops? It would take our minds off the mess he and his ANC have made of running our country more effectively than changing the names of towns and streets.