Baboons in trouble – again
4 November 2025
Readers of this Blog may think that I’m going through a bit of a simian crisis. And that would be understandable; perhaps I am. But close on the news about baboon trapping (my previous post on these animals) comes a different story, one that reflects our very complicated and hypocritical approach to wild animals and what we perceive to be appropriate protections for them under the law.
Who doesn’t love a goldfinch, or a hedgehog? Or a cheetah, bounding through the African dust? We all do!
Who loves a baboon? Nobody! Apart from South Africa’s equivalent of our RSPCA, or the Wildlife Animal Protection Forum South Africa (WAPFSA), which is at the centre of the following story, recently highlighted by the Daily Maverick, South Africa’s only independent newspaper.
I would urge readers to read the DM article first. The author, investigative environental journalist Adam Cruise, urges us to attend to the wider story.
This isn’t just about baboons in the Stormberg region. It’s a mirror on our relationship with our wildlife heritage. South Africa is home to a unique biodiversity. If indigenous primates are abandoned, sanctuaries collapse and killing is proposed as a solution, how can we claim to be custodians of our wildlife?
In this post I will attempt to disentangle some legal themes from the story which powerfully illustrates the inconsistency in legal protections afforded to different wild animal species, and exposes the structural problems within that country’s animal welfare and environmental law regimes.
Before reading on, be aware that there are 39 chacma baboons abandoned on a farm near Burgersdorp in the Eastern Cape, stranded after their sanctuary was dissolved by government fiat. The farm owner, whose property the animals occupy, requested their removal because the permit had lapsed. The provincial authority reportedly suggested that the animals be killed within 72 hours, and offered the “cost-effective” option that the landowner “open the cages, chase the animals out and have a competent hunter dispatch the animals as humanely as possible”. I put up a picture of a cute baby baboon because people tend to recoil from the adult version.
Legal Background: Animal Protection in South Africa
South Africa’s main statutory protection for animals is the Animals Protection Act 71 of 1962, which generally prohibits cruelty to animals—defined to include overloading, confinement, neglect, or acts causing unnecessary suffering. While the Act nominally covers “domestic animals and birds, and wild animals, birds, and reptiles that are in captivity or under the control of humans,” genuine wild animals outside human control, such as baboons roaming public or private land, are inconsistently protected in practice.
Further complexity arises from the fragmented jurisdiction for animal welfare, as the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries share regulatory roles. Domestic animals fall predominantly under the Agriculture Department, while wild fauna are a mixed responsibility, especially if they become “problem animals” (“vermin” in historic language), at which point local government, conservation, and agricultural interests often override welfare considerations. Just as a reminder, in the UK the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) is responsible for all animals and fish
Baboon Status: Beloved, Reviled, or Vermin?
Think “badgers” in the United Kingdom. Or muntjac, foxes and rats…
Baboons (Papio ursinus), like some wild species the world over, have a contradictory status in South African law and public consciousness. While they are a native species deserving ecological respect—and their killing for food, ritual, or “nuisance” purposes is periodically condemned, as in widely reported cases of mob violence or state-sanctioned culling—they are also classified by some provincial regulations as “problem animals.” This designation allows farmers, municipalities, or property owners to destroy baboons perceived as threats with relative legal impunity, provided they comply with often perfunctory permit or reporting rules. Such designations are legacy of the past, where governments the world over sanctioned the commercial exploitation of “desirable” wildlife (in Africa’s case, antelope, game birds) and destruction of “undesirable” species (e.g., baboons, jackals, birds of prey).
Modern society, more attuned to the collapse of biodiversity and species extinction, has come up with some admirable legislation to protect non-human animals from cruelty but the problem is, as ever, with enforcement. As the Daily Maverick article points out, the cruelty protections in the 1962 Act are rarely enforced in respect of baboons, except in captivity or egregious cases of torture, and allow “destruction of vermin” as an exception to the normal duty not to inflict unnecessary suffering. Thus, while horses, dogs, or parrots suffering neglect may trigger urgent enforcement or even criminal prosecution, wild baboons can be maimed, poisoned, or shot with limited risk of consequence, so long as their suffering is not wantonly prolonged or accompanied by obvious sadism.
Unfortunately there have been many reports of attacks by humans on these indigenous animals; baboons have been stoned or burned by children, shot by farmers, or controversially culled by officials. This has triggered public outcry and highlighted how bureaucratic inertia enables systemic suffering. Key weaknesses include:
• Fragmented legal mandates, with conflicting departmental roles and inconsistent application of welfare and conservation laws.
• Permit or exemption provisions which allow culls, often with minimal welfare assessment or external scrutiny.
• Disparities in enforcement: while highly publicised neglect of horses by state authorities leads to prosecution after years of effort, routine baboon killings rarely if ever result in prosecution or remedial orders.
This is not a problem unique to South Africa. In countries which do have animal welfare legislation for wild species outside human custody, there is invariably an absence of clear national code or mandatory standards for killing or controlling “problem” wildlife.
Philosophical and Ethical Dimensions
The inconsistent legal treatment of baboons exposes a deeper philosophical question: why do some animals—such as horses, dogs, or rare birds—attract exhaustive legal protection and public empathy, while others are killed with impunity? Several factors influence this split:
• Anthropomorphism and proximity: Animals frequently kept as pets, or with cultural “value,” receive better statutory shelter.
• Economic interests: “Game” animals are protected as a tourism or hunting resource, while “pests” impacting crop or livestock interests are legally expendable.
These are recognisable problems with our attitude to wildlife in Europe. But there are other obstacles to the protection of wild animals in countries like South Africa that require attention: Baboons suffer from cultural stigma, since they are often associated with witchcraft or disorder in African and settler folklore.
Prospects for Reform
There is increasing advocacy—from groups like the NSPCA, WAPFSA, and animal law experts—for modernising South African animal welfare law to close these gaps. Recommendations include:
• Clarifying and unifying departmental mandates to ensure that wild animal welfare is explicitly protected, including “problem” species.
• Adopting stronger national codes and minimum standards for humane wildlife management, culling, and conflict mitigation—ensuring both conservation and welfare are core values.
• Legislative reform, as seen in the (overdue) draft Animal Welfare Bill, to extend clear, enforceable anti-cruelty protections to all wild animals, regardless of their perceived economic value or nuisance status.
• Public education and engagement: combatting cultural and social norms that treat acts of cruelty towards wild “vermin” as insignificant compared to pet animals or charismatic megafauna.
Is South Africa particularly on the back foot here? Countries with progressive animal welfare regimes (e.g., New Zealand, parts of Europe) impose explicit standards for “necessary” killing, requiring humane methods, reporting, and regular policy review—even for animals considered pests. The World Animal Protection’s Animal Protection Index rates South Africa “D,” noting good statutory intentions but poor implementation, especially for wild animals.
Concluding comments
South Africa’s legal regime allows some wild animals to be protected, cherished, and avenged through the courts—while others, like baboons, are killed with near impunity where their existence collides with human interests. This double standard is rooted in historical, economic, and cultural factors, only thinly veiled by ambiguous and under-enforced welfare laws. Urgent legislative reform and a shift towards consistent, welfare-based management of all wild species are necessary if South Africa is to avoid repeating the cruelty and bureaucratic inertia so poignantly chronicled in its current “baboon crisis”.
As Adam Cruise of the Daily Maverick concludes,
You see the consequences of provincial policies and institutional inertia that allow – indeed facilitate – the neglect and potential destruction of indigenous primates. The case of the so‐called Stormberg baboons is not simply an isolated incident. It is a stark indictment of how human governance intersects with wildlife protection – and fails.
