This past week has been absolutely crazy. We had to catch
all 22 baboons from their pre-release enclosure and transport them to smaller
interim enclosures around the centre. In between, some needed health checks and
to be fitted for their fancy new radio collars. This might seem like an easy
task, but it is not. In the beginning, some of the friendlier baboons come
eagerly and easily, mostly the juveniles, and Marta and I were able to catch
and move a lot of monkeys quickly. The second half of the week proved more
difficult. The more human-fearful baboons were quickly on to our little game
and didn’t come anywhere near the night rooms. This now involved a lot of
creative trap techniques, early mornings, and extreme amounts of patience, usually
hours, just waiting by the slide in case one baboon came into the night rooms.
These usually proved fruitless.
Transporting Chip
Sally getting a health check
Finally we were down to Big Foot, one of the two adult
males, who had to be darted. It took three days of trying to get him in a good
position to dart. Interestingly, it happened while I was half in the enclosure
trying to move some food, apparently not-so-sneakily. He saw me and came close,
and provided a good view for a dart shot. And it was perfect. I was so happy we
were able to dart him!! I feel much better going into this with two adult males
rather than just one.
However, during the darting, the remaining four females
jumped over the fence and out of the enclosure. The next three days, (we
postponed the release two days as a result), were spent with Marta and I trying
to catch those four wily baboons. This involved even MORE patient hours spent
sitting in the woods with a rope attached to a door patiently waiting for
baboons to walk inside to get the pile of food that awaited and baited them.
For example, it took 14 hours to catch two of them. 14 straight hours of
sitting and waiting. The baboons would get so close to the door so many times
and my adrenaline would start pumping only to have them turn around and my
hopes were dashed. Over and over. It was quite demoralizing at times, but in
the end we did manage to get them. The last day possible, we caught the third
baboons in the morning. The fourth baboon that was still out and about was the
most elusive and cleverest, Sally. We tried about 6 different types of traps
for her and she wasn’t even the slightest bit interested in any of them. Late
in the afternoon, Jasper, the boss here, devised another plan, which of course
again required sitting patiently in the woods with a rope. Neither Marta nor I
were at all hopeful that this would work. But lo and behold, Sally walked right
into the trap. I was all over the rope system by now and we got that damn
baboon. 6 pm the day before the release. It was a miracle. It is the first time
the release is going ahead with all the monkeys caught!
Today is the big release day. It was all hands on board
today as we re-caught all the baboons from their temporary enclosures and put
them into their transport boxes. Once they were settled, we had a ten-ton truck
come and we loaded all the baboons in boxes onto it. Now they are patiently
waiting on that truck.
We are all set to leave the centre here at 1 am (as I
write this it’s 11pm and I’m so tired), so that we drive through the night and
first thing in the morning we can put the baboons in to their pre-release
enclosure at the release site in Kasungu National Park, my new home. From there
they remain in that enclosure for just a few days before we open their doors
for good! And then my real job starts of trying to get them to survive in the
wild and record everything. So for now, it’s been an incredible, and definitely
at times boring and frustrating, week, but now it’s on to the incredible task
of re-releasing rehabilitated baboons back into their natural habitat. Wish us
all luck!
Internet in the bush is limited, and I will be working from
dawn to dusk, but I will try and make time to write on her when I can.
