Baboon on the Cape Peninsula.
An article on the BBC News website on 25th August 2010 had the headline “The criminal baboons terrorising South Africa”, and goes on to describe the baboons of the Cape Peninsula as “intruders”. This got us at the Handshake thinking about the now-widespread problem of human-wildlife conflict, and the rights and wrongs of criminalising the animals involved.
When you consider the fact that human-wildlife conflict is worsening because of the explosion in human populations all over the world, it seems grossly unfair to label the baboons in the Cape as “intruders”, when as a matter of fact, it is humans that originally encroached on the baboons’ natural habitat. Last year, the Great Primate Handshake reported on Bart the baboon, a rogue male who left his troop and, instead of finding a place in a new troop of baboons, made his home on the campus of Cape Town University, living on food stolen from bins and shopping bags, and eventually being tagged for euthanasia when the authorities decided he posed a risk to people.
Bart’s story captured the imagination of many people around the world, with petitions being set up to spare him from death. Many people in the UK were outraged at the thought of an animal being killed just because it’s a slight nuisance to humans, but would we have this attitude if the “problem” animal was raiding our bins and making a mess of our carefully planned towns?
After two babies were attacked by an urban fox in London last year, some people called for a cull of foxes in towns and cities, and others reported that they sometimes set fox traps to combat the problem of foxes coming into their gardens or even their homes. However, fox attacks are extremely rare, while attacks by domestic dogs number in the thousands every year in the UK.
Another “problem” animal in the UK is the seagull, which hit headlines in June 2010 for disrupting mail deliveries in Devon, as seagull parents tried to protect their fledglings after they fell from rooftop nests. The Department of Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs can issue licences to cull problem seagulls, and few people seem to be upset by this idea. Perhaps we would feel differently if the animal concerned was a hornbill in Africa or a kakapo in New Zealand; does this make us hypocrites?
Should we criminalise animals that are just trying to survive in a world to which we have made irreversible changes? Why do we feel strong emotions about the death of attractive, exotic animals and detachment from the fates of our own native species? What do you think can be done to ameliorate the effects of human-wildlife conflict as it becomes progressively more common with the growth of human populations?
August 27th, 2010 at 2:27 pm
I will contemplate and answer later.
However I heaard on BBC One tv news on Tuesday where ” Highways”
have spent over a quarter of a million pounds sterling on a metal bridge across a motorway ( I didnt note which one, but think it was in Wales) to allow a DORMOUSE to cross. Hew (or is it Hugh!) and Cry
I rmember the Newbury Bypass in the early nineties when
protestors were living in trees trying to conserve some woodlands
for specie habitat..
I do think we have tried somewhat here in the U.K. But one cannot speak to loudly here or report matters because some of our own population do not agree with the Green issues.
We have one member of the GREEN PARTY in our own Parliament
and several in the European Parliament. To raise issues and awareness.
Awareness is necassary first.
It is often remarked. ” Where are all our wild flowers gone?”
To this Farmers have to leave a wild border around all ploughed fields.
Media awareness please.
August 29th, 2010 at 12:52 pm
Obie One Kenobe here.
Its definitely US we are the WHOMS and we are still doing it.
I heard on the radio this morning about a South Devon Coastal farmer
losing two metres of his land a year to erosion. The sea is encrouching because of what THE WHOMS DO. It seems that gravel and sand are being extracted from the Humber estuary. ( 200 miles away)
The removal of the sand and gravel was like moving books ends
causing erosion all the way up the coast. Another cause is the latest
IN VEGETABLE, samphire. This is being harvested in huge amounts and
the roots of these plants hold grains of sand together more erosion.
We The whoms must be made aware of the Cause and Effect of our Actions.
Doing or saying nothing is enabling it to happen.
You are doing your bit. With modern technology you can tell the world.
Us lesser mortals can be like a drip of water, drip drip drip until we make an indentation. Or a grain of sand dropped continiously in the same place, A sand dune.
I was a child of the sixties. Anarchy, not Apathy.
Keep on shaking hands keep on with your wonderful films photographs
and articles.
Thank you handshakers. Ill just keep drip drip dripping.
August 30th, 2010 at 11:41 am
Its me again with a good idea from the radio this morning.
In the U.K. we haveover sixteen thousand miles of hedgerows.
These hedgerows are MOTORWAYS for wildlife to travel along.
The farmers are giving funds in the form of grants for the stewardship of these hedgerow.. They are also given grants for leaving a border two metres into their fields for wild flowers
plants etc. In Yorkshire and other places North of, they have dry stone walls which look wonderful and farmers leave a metre on either side of the walls and all the insects etc etc. live within the
walls and heather flowers grasses grow to enable the bees to
feed and grow our honey. Scottish Heather Honey is particularly delicious.
In order to remove any ancient hedgerow for whatever purpose the farmers need planning permission. We have 24 per cent protected and are increasing this to 42 per cent.
The equivilant of hedgerows, strips of natural forest around flower farms joining up with other strips around sancturies and fully fledged mini forests left around all urban developments. This could work if countries would pass the legislation.
I am sure you can get this and more on the BBC WEB SITE and also on The Goverment Environment web site of the U.K.
Good luck handshakers. Keep up the Media work.
Remember. Drip Drip Drip !!!!