The second of a pair of baboons that stowed away on a ship from Cape Town to Durban has been rescued.
Wildlife rescue organisations initially assumed they were looking for the mother of the juvenile baboon rescued earlier in the week, however it turned out to be a young male.
“After a sighting of the baboon still at large yesterday morning in the Malvern area the trail went cold until this morning when we received a call and video of the baboon on the roof of a garage in a storage facility.
“Our team dropped the baboon caught yesterday at the vet and immediately went to the site where it was seen. The baboon had decided to follow a local troop of vervet monkeys to a residential complex around the corner,” the Centre for Rehabilitation of Wildlife (CROW) said on Friday.
CROW set a trap for it.
“The team led by the clinic nurse set the trap and while our team were keeping the monkeys away from the trap the baboon, enticed by the tasty treats, walked into the trap and the door dropped successfully securing the baboon.”
“The pictures and videos we received were deceiving and it turned out to be a juvenile male about the same age as the one caught on Thursday,” said CROW.
The pair were taken to the vet.
“These two juvenile baboons, who were running amok around Durban since Sunday, have settled into their new temporary digs, where they will stay under quarantine until Monday, when they will move into their more spacious luxury accommodation.
“While at the vet, we took blood samples for DNA analysis to ascertain which population they came from. From here, they will be kept at CROW until we receive our export permits and the receiving province has their import permits in hand,” said CROW.
The pair will not be immediately released back into the wild in Cape Town.
“They will then be flown to the baboon specialised rehabilitation centre, where they will be joined into a troop under rehabilitation for eventual release back into the wild. A number of people have been asking if they will be released straight back to the Cape. Unfortunately, this is not possible for a number of reasons, the main one being that if we do not know which exact troop they came from, they could be killed, and at this age, they would not be able to fend for themselves.”
CROW has named them.
“Following the Afrikaans theme for primate names this year, the girl has been named Nonna after the popular song and the boy Willie after Willie Le Roux, our great rugby player.”
TimesLIVE