• Human Wildlife Solutions is contracted to manage baboons in Betty's Bay, which sometimes prove to be a problem for local residents.
• But some residents claim the company's methods are cruel.
• The City of Cape Town's baboon management programme recently turned down an application to euthanise one of the baboons.

Kommetjie residents have expressed their relief to hear that a local baboon, SK11 or Kataza as he is affectionately known, has had his life spared after an application to euthanise the baboon was rejected by the operations manager of the City of Cape Town's baboon management programme, Owen Wittridge.

Wittridge confirmed that an application had been made by Human Wildlife Solutions (HWS) to euthanise SK11, as he is known to HWS.

HWS is the company contracted by the Overstrand municipality to manage the baboon troop in Betty's Bay and other areas.

Many in the Betty's Bay community have raised concerns about the methods HWS uses to manage the troop, including shooting paint balls at them and euthanising those animals who enter human homes.

The Betty's Bay Baboon Action Group recently received the personal support of world-renowned primatologist Dame Jane Goodall.

Local residents claim the application to euthanise Kataza was unjustified, even by baboon management guidelines, and was motivated by HWS's failure to manage the troop by non-lethal means.

Bradley Thorsen, representing concerned Kommetjie residents, said his own data on the baboon troop movements contradicted that of HWS.

In a letter of complaint about HWS, Thorsen says: "HWS reporting is not accurate and the fact that the reports are consistently not less than 2 months late makes verifying their data even more demanding. I would suggest that May's report has been purposefully manipulated in order to convict SK11 for euthanasia."

Speaking to News24 last week, Thorsen said the baboons were treated like criminals who acquired a "rap sheet" according to which they were evaluated and sentenced, sometimes to death.

He said HWS was simply frustrated by Kataza after the baboon managed to break "through the line" of HWS rangers, but that that was not "an offence" in terms of the baboon management guidelines.

CapeNature previously told News24 the "non-lethal approach ... is working" and that the "selective removal of individual recalcitrant problem baboons promotes sustainable troop management and mitigates human-wildlife conflict".