International Primate Day - September 1, 2009

Primate suffering, abuse, exploitation and persecution in South Africa will be highlighted on September 1 this year when Animal Rights Africa (ARA) joins the growing international effort to publicise the plight of primates the world over.

International Primate Day, which is observed on September 1 every year, was founded in 2005 by British-based Animal Defenders International for animal campaigners across the world to focus on the exploitation and persecution of primates.

Steve Smit, ARA trustee and joint coordinator of the ARA primate project, Monkey Helpline, said, “Primates in South Africa face a variety of threats to their safety and survival which are largely ignored by an ignorant or uncaring public. South African baboons and Vervet monkeys in particular are amongst the most misunderstood, maligned and persecuted animals in our country and suffer horrendously at the hands of intolerant and cruel humans. Not only are they the targeted victims for the “bushmeat” trade, for use by the entertainment industry, for the pet trade and as research subjects in laboratories, they are also relentlessly persecuted as so-called “pests and vermin” in both urban and agricultural areas where they are trapped, poisoned and shot in large numbers. Many fall victim to the cruelty of the traditional medicine (muti) trade and superstition”.

Smit said that ARA will ensure that in future International Primate Day will be observed annually throughout South Africa on September 1 and invited all specialist primate groups and other animal caring groups throughout the country to make a special effort for primates on this day. “Closer to the date we will announce various events that will take place on the day, but we can announce now that we will be handing over a memorandum to the national Minister of Safety and Security, or a representative from his ministry, calling for more stringent controls on the use of air-guns (pellet guns) which are a major source of injury, maiming and death in Vervet monkeys and baboons in both urban and agricultural areas. Amongst other things, we will also organize special events at schools and in various public places to educate South Africans about the five species of indigenous primates and why they deserve our respect and protection against exploitation and persecution”.


The pics on this page show, from top to bottom, a mother Vervet monkey and her baby of about six months sitting on a palisade fence in Umhlanga in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). We had to rescue a baby off an identical fence after it fell from a tree and impaled itself, through one arm and one leg, on two of the three points on each vertical. The mother was frantic as we gently released the terrified baby from its grizzly fate. The injuries were severe and the baby spent months recovering in our home-based "high care". When the little one had recovered we attempted to reintroduce it to the troop but without success. It has now been placed in rehabilitation for release in a few years time.


The centre pic shows Carol holding a sedated female Vervet we rescued in Amanzimtoti south of Durban, KZN today. Severely injured and crippled, with numerous cuts on her legs and hind-quarters, a severed left achilles tendon and her right eye socket devoid of an eyeball, we took her to our vet, Dr Kerry Easson, who came in to treat the monkey even though it was her day off. X-rays revealed 8 airgun pellets in her body and two in her head, one of which is embedded in the back of the socket that used to contain her right eyeball. We can only speculate how many other pellets had struck her body and passed right through, like the pellet that entered her left temple and exited above her left eye taking with it a chunk of bone. Under the skillful and caring treatment of Kerry and the tender care of Carol whilst in our "high care", she will hopefuly recover sufficiently to be able to spend her remaining years being spoilt by Shesh and Malcolm Roberts at the five star Tumbili Primate Sanctuary in Ashburton near Pietermaritzburg, KZN.



The bottom pic shows me with Lilo, an 8-week old baby baboon who came into Carol's care and in just 15 days changed her life forever. We'll tell you more about Lilo in a seperate posting.

Frustration!!!

Tuesday, September 9 starts with phone calls to various people in Bloemfontein trying to find anyone who has any information about alleged plans to move little Adam, a 6 month-old Chacma baboon from the medical research laboratories at Free State University to a rehabilitation centre.

For those who don’t know, Adam was handed to the Free State conservation authorities a few months ago by some good folk who had found him abandoned and, after caring for him for a while, passed him on in the belief that he would be placed in a rehabilitation programme. How wrong they were!

The Free State conservation boffins, in their infinite wisdom and compassion, saw Adam as a threat to the genetic purity of their baboons and decided that he should become a research tool. They claimed that there was no rehabilitation programme that could take Adam. What utter nonsense!

A public outcry by animal-caring people country-wide has so far yielded no positive outcome for Adam, but yesterday (September 8) I was asked to enquire as to where Adam was being sent, as there was a rumour that he was finally destined for a recognized rehabilitation centre – somewhere! I quickly established that none of the baboon rehabilitation centres anywhere in South Africa had been issued a permit for Adam, though all said they would gladly accept him. Then after a number of phone calls to the Free State conservation department, and being shunted from pillar to post, the official in the permit issuing office, on my second phone call to her, crossed her heart and swore to die when telling me that Adam was still at Free State University and that no permit had been issued to transfer him anywhere else.

So, young Adam’s fate still hangs in the balance, or should I say “imbalance”, as the conservation officials play god with his precious life. But he has not been abandoned by decent caring people and the fight to rescue him continues.

Closer to home Carol was diarizing a talk on Vervet monkeys that we would be doing to a group of learners at a prestigious Durban school on September 18. These talks, accompanied by an attention-grabbing slide presentation, form a vitally important part of our broad-based education effort about monkeys, and we try to schedule as many talks as we are able to do.

Then at 10.55 the inevitable daily rescue callout. Acquaintance Mark, who works for a heavy transport company in Avoca, north of Durban, called for assistance with a badly injured young monkey near the truck wash-bay. We asked him to offer the monkey food in an effort to keep it from moving off in the time it would take us to reach him.

Unfortunately, by the time we reached the scene the monkey had moved through the 2.5 meter high razor wire security fence and was sitting just out of reach amongst the reeds that line a tributary of the Umgeni river. Wondering why companies waste so much money on this type of security fencing, I scaled the fence about ten meters away from the monkey and dropped down the other side, unharmed. The little monkey was so skittish that he crawled down into the layers of old and broken reeds before I could get anywhere near him and was just impossible to find. A half hour search yielded only nettle-stung legs and burning cuts from the sharp-edged reed leaves.

Not willing to give up on what we knew was a very badly injured and suffering animal, we placed food near the place where the monkey was first seen and asked Mark to call us when the monkey reappeared, which we knew – hoped – it would. We drove away with heavy hearts as we always do after not catching a monkey we have gone out to rescue. We fail so seldom that we haven’t got used to the horrible feeling. For the rest of the day, every time my phone rang we willed it to be Mark calling to tell us that the little monkey was back. Fate was not being kind to us – or to the desperately-in-need-of-being-rescued monkey. No phone call! We could only hope for better luck the next day…