The control of Chacma baboons

Baboons and monkeys have provided a challenge to crops and homesteads, challenging me from my early adolescence when I was required to shoot them to protect my father’s maize and cotton crops. From the outset of my ZimParks PAC (Problem Animal Control) career, my frequent task was chasing off and controlling baboon depredation. When I took over PAC Unit 3 (Kyle National Park), ZimParks, I was tasked with undertaking the toxic control of baboons employing the chemical Telodrex™, also marketed as Isobenzan or Telodrin, a highly potent organochlorine residual toxicant, suspected to have a five-generation residual effect, a liquid toxicant which we painted directly onto maize cobs and left out in lines for the baboons to feed on. The toxicant application, though effective, was indiscriminate and resulted in severe cramping and convulsions to the baboon, taking time to succumb, resulting in the survivors learning and never returning to bait, even years later, educated through poorly executed operations.