WILD LIFERS: Jane of Waterfall speaks to the tall tailless

I’m Jane of the Waterfall Troop and I want to say this to all you tall tailless ones.

I’m afraid. We are all afraid. We hear you are coming to catch us and put us in a camp with bee-sting wires, somewhere we can never leave. We will not be able to come back to our Waterfall valley. Our youngsters will grow old without ever bringing their own babies to the places where we carried them.

You call this a sanctuary. I have been trying to understand the word.

Perhaps we should begin with our family connection. Far back, before there were baboons or humans, we had ancestors in common. Then our branches grew in different directions. Yours eventually produced clothes, guns, bread and committees. Ours kept our tail and strong muscles. Looking down at your meetings, I cannot say you made an entirely satisfactory exchange.

We belonged to these mountains long before your roads arrived. Other tall tailless lived here before your ships made of trees came across the sea and they liked us. We showed them the best things to eat.

I cannot tell you that everyone always got along. Even baboons quarrel over a comfortable rock. But after you arrived, almost every useful piece of flat ground had an owner who wanted us elsewhere.

Now, your houses climb the slopes

Then came gardens, orchards and things planted in rows. Delicious things. Your ancestors defended them with sticks that spat fire. Now, your houses climb the slopes and we’re still being told to move. Every time we move, somewhere else becomes yours.

From your windows, the mountain looks enormous. From ours, if we had windows, the useful parts keep shrinking.

I know we frighten you. A large male in your kitchen is a lot of baboon in a small space. He has teeth. Your child is there. You should not have to be frightened in your own home. I understand wanting your baby safe. Much of my day is organised around exactly that concern.

But please look at the arrangement you’ve made. You fill containers with food and leave the lids loose. You grow figs. You put bread behind doors that slide. Then you’re astonished when an animal with fingers and an excellent memory investigates.

Your scientists have measured how much more energy your food gives us for each mouthful. We discovered this without equipment. Digging takes time. A loaf is already dug.

Yes, we learn your doors. We learn your roofs, too. Some of your buildings offer very comfortable sleeping places. You say we’ve become too clever at living beside you. It’s a strange offence, adapting successfully to the world the neighbours built.

The punishment seems to be that we must never see that world again.

What will I teach my youngster inside the wire?

I hear there will be 44 of us in our enclosure, with 16 Seaforth baboons next door. There’ll be climbing ropes, sleeping platforms and water. People are working hard to make it comfortable. I don’t think every hand building that fence hates us.

That makes this harder to explain.

A platform can hold my body. It cannot tell me where I am. I know the valley through my feet: the rock that warms first, the shelter from the wind, the route a youngster can manage and the one she must wait to try. These things are learnt by following someone who knows. What will I teach her inside the wire?

Perhaps she will become very good at knowing the fence.

You promise there will be less danger. No cars charging through the troop. No angry human with a gun. Reliable meals. I would like all those things. But you have bundled them together with never leaving and never having another baby, as though they cannot be offered separately.

You’ll keep us until there are none of us left

This is the part I cannot stop thinking about. You intend to prevent births.

Have you watched what happens when a baby arrives? The interest, the reaching hands, the small face inspected from every angle? Have you watched a mother trying to eat while somebody hangs determinedly from her stomach? A troop is busy with lives beginning. Even the old ones have someone new to watch.

Inside your sanctuary, the youngest will eventually become the oldest. There will be fewer of us on the platforms. One day someone will carry away the last baboon and the enclosure will be wonderfully easy to manage.

You will have kept us until there were none of us left.

Some of you are asking for another way. I hear about Luana and the rangers who helped Seaforth forage away from town. About people securing bins and proposing fences around the places that draw us into trouble. Others want a boundary that protects the town while leaving us wild.

I understand there are difficulties. Gates open. Fences break. You disagree about food beyond the boundary and whether we would simply move the trouble elsewhere. Those are serious questions. Please investigate them seriously, while we are still here.

Two of your young females, Erin and Shreya, are asking you to try the things that let us stay wild first. They are 12 years old. I find it encouraging that some tall tailless develop this much sense before reaching full height.

If the money runs out…

There is something else about your promise of safety. I hear the money is arranged for a few years, although some of us may need care for much longer. If the money fails and no other home can be found, your plan allows us to be killed.

So even inside the wire, our lives will depend on whether people continue to want us.

And if fire comes, you say the gates can open and rangers will guide us out. For a little while, with flames approaching, we will be allowed to find safety beyond the enclosure. Afterwards we must come back. I wonder how you will explain that to a baboon who has found the open mountain again.

Tonight I will settle with my family. Someone will push too close. Someone will object. A youngster will attempt one last adventure before being gathered in. The wind will carry the smells of the valley and we will sleep in the place we know.

You have the power to make this one of our last nights here. That is why I am afraid of you, my tall tailless cousins.

Before you come for us, sit quietly above Waterfall for a while. Watch us until you can tell one face from another. Stay long enough to see who waits for whom.

Then tell me where you think we belong. DM

• Read Part 1: Drawing the line on Cape Town’s baboons

• Read Part 2: The wicked problem of controlling baboons

• Read Part 3: ‘Free of freedom’ and the case against baboon captivity

• Read Part 4: Full board. Life term. You can check out, but you can never leave

• Link to baboon resource site