A R16-million baboon abattoir in Warmbaths to produce canned baboon
meat, polony and salami for central Africa and eastern Europe, and to
export baboon hands, nails and teeth to the Far East for sale as sexual
stimulants is as bizarre on many counts as is the "righteous"
justification that this will relieve the plight of the great apes in
central Africa being eaten in the bush-meat trade.
Perhaps the most frightening aspect is the lack of attention to the
business, given the investment of R16-million. The listing of baboons
as a Cites Schedule 2 species requires that any commercial use would
have to be proved sustainable.
It was reported that the abattoir was planning to process between
300 and 400 baboons a week. This is 15 600 baboons a year. Since they
can produce one infant every 18 months at the most, you would need
23 400 just to produce that many baboons annually.
If you take into account that the adults must replace themselves by
the end of their lifetime, (assuming they all live to 25 years, and
taking into account that females begin reproducing only at five years
of age) this increases the number of females needed to 26 000.
A natural population of 26 000 adult females would equate to, on
average, 10 040 males and 54 060 infants and juveniles. This gives us
a theoretical minimum sustainable population size of 90 100 baboons.
Given that:
- Baboons, although capable of reproducing every 18 months, don't
always do this.
- Probably only half the baboons born survive to 25 years of age.
- This model assumes absolute knowledge and control of exactly
which individuals and from which troops you take them (which is
impossible in practice), the actual minimum sustainable population
size would be more like 250 000 baboons.
This is a large number of baboons, indeed!
In fact, this would mean you would be harvesting from an
undisturbed area about 4.5 times the size of the Kruger Park.
This would clearly be an enormous and demanding task, even if the
population existed.
The more likely result would be the destruction of all local
baboon populations, followed shortly by the bankruptcy of the business itself.
Incidentally, from another economic perspective, if the business with
all its costs could realise a profit of R30 a kg from its produce, it
would require 35 500 baboons to pass through the abattoir just to cover
the R16-million investment.
- Dave Gaynor and Ruth Kansky,
Cape Peninsula Baboon Project,
Scarborough
