ROARING FOR A CAUSE

ROARING FOR A CAUSE

 

In a world first, on the 15^th March 2014  organizations and activists joined marches in 65 cities around the world to protest against the 'canned' lion hunting industry.

 

This was the result of a process which started in early 1991 when Gareth Patterson learned that hunters in the Eastern Cape had used bows and arrows to kill lions and some time later an undercover video came to hand which showed the sickening scene of a 'canned' trophy hunt 

at the Marlothi game farm close to the Kruger National Park's southern boundary.

 

The video caused the investigative Cook Report team in Britain to arrange for an undercover hunting team to travel to South Africa, with Roger Cook himself posing as a wealthy but unwell 'client.'  (Bolander June 5 2013). Their subsequent report, shown in South Africa on Carte Blanche, sent shock waves throughout the world in 1997.

 

 It also spurred into action Chris Mercer and Bev Pervan of the Kalahari Raptor Centre who started a campaign to get canned hunting banned in South Africa. In their Publication "Canned Lion unting Hunting - A National Disgrace" which also contained their submission to the S.A. Government, they unting – a National Disgrace" they describe how they wdescribe how "they were snubbed by just about every wildlife organization in the country, from nature conservation authorities to N.G.O's, from hunting organizations to environmental journalists.  No political party showed any interest in fighting this cause.  The environmental ethic in South Africa was that animals were a mere resource to be used."

 

The canned hunting industry flourished, as did the various industries which fed upon its practice – the lion breeding farms and 'cub petting' and 'walking with the lions' facilities, the trophy hunters and taxidermists, the circuses and zoos and, eventually, the taxidermists.   Also the lion bone industry, the bones being sold to known Asian crime syndicates who pay lion farmers for  lion carcasses, which are processed in Asia and then fraudulently sold as tiger bone cake at (US$1000 per 100 grams) for unproven medicinal purposes.

 

But with a dogged determination Chris and Bev persisted and founded the Campaign Against Canned Hunting (CACH).  Not getting much support in South Africa, their unrelenting lobbying was directed world-wide.

 

This persistence paid off, critical mass being reached 15 years later with the Global March being  organized, proving that a vast number of people across the world would no longer be silent about the cruelty involved.  

Sixty five cities came aboard with thousands of people marching to tell the world about the nightmare which is the horrific canned hunting industry in South Africa and that they wanted to see lions living wild and free.

 

In Los Angeles TheTokens performed live the original version of their number one hit and theme song of Disney's Lion King.

 

In South Africa marches took place in Durban, Johannesburg, Grahamstown and Cape Town where an estimated 1,700 people marched, with Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu's daughter Rev. Mpho Tutu joining the latter.  She read out the Arch's prayer "for all God's beautiful wildlife, especially the wild white lion, that are at risk because of the (human) predators going around destroying them." He also prayed for blessings on those who had made public this practice and that they would succeed in their quest.

 Chris Mercer from CACH handed over a submission to Dr. Mario Ambrosini MP for delivery to Deputy Director General Dr. Guy Preston of the Department of Environmental Affairs.

 

According to Mercer, a retired lawyer, there is no legal definition of canned hunting, but the key is the absence of fair chase. So "canned hunting is where the target animal is unfairly prevented from escaping the hunter, either by physical constraints (fencing) or by mental constraints (tame, habituated to humans.) On this definition, all hunts of captive bred lions are canned hunts."

 

He goes on to point out that there are fewer than 4000 lions left in the 'wild' in South Africa, but more than 8,000 in captivity, being bred for the bullet or the arrow, with the number increasing daily. "Lion farming is a real threat to wild lion prides, for many reasons. The on-going capture of wild lions to introduce fresh blood into captive breeding and the growth of the lion bone trade to Asia will impact severely on wild lions from poaching."

 

Already there are reports in the media about wild lions being killed in Botswana to obtain cubs which are then smuggled across the border into S.A. Unscrupulous S.A. lion breeders will buy them to bring fresh blood to their lion stock for genetic reasons, and to ward off captivity depression.

 

This wholesale and unscientific killing of lions has long term effects on wild prides, destroying the core pride function. Research shows that it can take as long as seven years for a lion pride to re-establish itself after the death of the trophy male.

 

"The public needs to be informed through sustained campaigns and the US and EU governments being persuaded to ban the import of lion/predator trophies. Only that way can the supply of dollars be cut off and the industry closed down," Mercer says.

 

 Lion farming does not fall under the Department of Agriculture but the Supreme Court has ruled that it has nothing to do with conservation, so it cannot be regulated by conservation officials either. Lion farming thus falls between two government departments. In consequence, captive predators bred for hunting purposes have no regulatory protection.

 

"In the end," he says, "canned hunting only exists because of a failure of government policy, and being ferociously defended by wealthy vested interests." 

 

It is causing a backlash against tourism to South Africa. Ethical tourists are already boycotting SA, causing losses to the legitimate tourism industry.

 

These boycotts will surely increase over time with sustained pressure through world-wide campaigns such as the recent global march against canned hunting.

TINY TEACUP PIGS' AND HUMAN FOLLIES

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Humans appear to have a fascination for small animals that can be held in the palm of one's hand and so potbellied pigs were introduced into the United States in 1985 and promoted as the perfect house pet.  Correctly, it was claimed that they were easier to house train than dogs and did not carry fleas but, in the interests of sales, essential information was omitted.

            The average "tiny teacup pig" weighs 80 kg on reaching adulthood – so it was not long before they were abandoned, much like puppies purchased on a whim at Christmas time.  They can also become extremely aggressive and, following their natural instincts, root up carpets as well as your garden.  This craze has now reached South Africa and is already creating a problem for animal welfare societies country-wide that have had  to deal with the consequences of their being dumped as they reach adulthood.

            It does rather seem as if the new about-to-be-promulgated animal by-laws do not make specific provision for potbellied pigs as pets, or about their limitation per household, as is the case with cats and dogs, leading to unintended consequences A question directed to Alan Perrins, CEO of the Cape of Good Hope ope SPCA, about whether these would fall under the classification of farm animals or pets, elicited the brief response: "semantics."

            According to Cora Bailey of Community Led Animal Welfare (CLAW), they have been dealing with this problem in Gauteng for some time.

            People are dumping their formerly cosseted "tiny teacup pigs" in townships to be slaughtered in which-ever way people see fit.

            Clearly there is a serious gap in the by-law here.

THE JOY AND TRAGEDY OF PIGS

 

Winston Churchill said: Dogs look up to you cats look down on you, but pigs treat you like equals.

             Pigs resemble human beings in many ways.  Like dogs and other animals they share many of our feelings - compassion, fear, and their need for companionship and intelligence.

They are able to solve problems and have been shown to excel at video games that would be hard for a young child, and sometimes perform better than primates.

Karl Schwenke points out in his 1985 classic, In a Pig's Eye:  "Pigs are gregarious animals. Like children they thrive on affection, enjoy toys, have a short attention span and are easily bored.  Much like children, piglets do not develop in a normal way when they are deprived of the opportunity to engage in play. They are at least as intelligent as dogs and have been known to rescue their owners from drowning.

They also dream and see colours like us. It is now recognised that they know when they are going to be slaughtered. Like dogs, they are individuals.

            The one big difference between pigs and dogs is the way we treat them.  We play with our dogs, take them for walks - we rarely do the same with pigs. It is difficult to understand why they receive such a raw deal. 

            George Orwell's classic novel, Animal Farm, is generally considered to be a political fable about totalitarianism and Russia.  However, as Jeffrey Masson points out, Orwell himself saw it in another light, explaining in a preface written for the Ukranian translation, that the story came to him when he saw a little boy, perhaps ten years old, abusing a carthorse.    

            He was struck with the force of a revelation "that men exploit animals in much the same way as the rich exploit the proletariat" and proceeded to analyze Marx's theory from the animals' point of view.

            In the beginning of the book, as Major tells the animals on the farm, "No animal in England knows the meaning of happiness or leisure after he is a year old. No animal in England is free. The life of an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth."

            And so, as farm animals, pigs now live in a world that has become very far removed from nature -  and where the purpose of their existence is almost entirely defined by their death or exploitation, where animals are seen as objects and have to earn their keep  along the world view of  if it pays it stays.  We confine pigs in factory farms in sheds where they are constantly impregnated, and where they stand on slats, not even able to move around.  As piglets their tails are docked without anaesthetic and in the end, like the old horse in Animal Farm, their fate is the slaughterhouse.

            But a visit to the Rustler's Valley community, near Ficksburg in the Free State, demonstrated again the symbiotic relationship between human- and non-human animals, where the pigs' keen sense of smell and natural inclination to root is used to the benefit of all.

The Rustlers' Valley community practices permaculture, a sustainable way of agriculture which is about "caring for the environment so that the environment can care for us." The use of  pesticides and other chemicals is dispensed with by the inter-planting of  crops with herbs that heal the soil and keep away harmful pests.   In working with nature mechanical devices are dispensed with.  New veggie patches are prepared by making use of 'pig tractoring.'  A sty is erected over a patch of veld which is to be cleared.

            The pigs then root to their hearts' content, clearing the ground of unwanted vegetation and spreading manure to feed the soil. As such, everybody is happy and the community is able to live off the land entirely.

Proposed Animal Welfare Laws for Western Cape under Scrutiny

                    

 

During October 2013 the City of Cape Town put out for public comment a draft animal welfare policy for the Western Cape.  The Animal Protection Act of 1962 still informs national welfare policy despite the changing values, norms and principles of our new non-racial society being very different from those in place all those years ago when the legislation was passed.

Owing to public pressure, the national government as long ago as 2006 put out a draft policy document called the "Draft Animal Care Policy for South Africa" but since then the trail has gone cold with no progress being made, at national level, on taking up the suggestions in the draft. It is speculated that this is due to cultural practices that are arguably a criminal contravention of the Animal Protection Act.

            "These considerations do not, however, constrain the law-makers of the Western Cape where the DA governs at both provincial and city level. Its policies are therefore those that ought to inform the laws, by-laws and regulations in place in this province and its mother city," points out Adv. Paul Hoffman SC, director of the Institute for Accountability in Southern Africa, who also referred to the fact that the DA did not have a policy on animals as disclosed by the Premier of the Western Cape, Helen Zille except that they were opposed to cruelty against animals. Zille suggested that an animal welfare forum be established, which would include all animal welfare organizations.  The subsequent draft policy was put out for public participation.

            Alan Perrins, Chief Executive Officer for the Cape of Good Hope SPCA and chairperson of the Animal Welfare Forum, feels encouraged by the draft policy which recognizes the sentience of animals and makes sterilization compulsory under certain conditions. (Mandatory sterilization of cats and dogs is a stance already adopted by other Municipalities in South Africa including Swellendam and Kannaland.)

            Sterilization as a strategy would address the cause, not just effects, of the many problems attendant upon the over-population of animals, such as the resultant burden on welfare organizations who are filled to capacity with unwanted animals.

Presently a disproportionate amount of donors' funding is being spent on euthanasing instead of re-homing and sterilization.  In this respect, the Animal Welfare Forum decries the gross underfunding of municipal pounds such as the official City pound at Atlantis.

An annual figure of, say R 250 000 – R300 000 is woefully inadequate for its efficient running, with the costs then spilling over onto other animal welfare organizations who receive absolutely no funding from the City. The Cape SPCA alone has had to spend around two million rands of donor funds on collecting animals and spaying them or euthanasing them humanely.

Still remaining also, are serious challenges to enforcing the bylaws such as animals being defined as property or possessions in terms of the law while, at the same time, the draft animal welfare policy acknowledges their sentience.

This anomaly can only be resolved by lobbying at national government level as national laws will always supercede provincial ones.

Further challenges, says Perrins, are entrenched cruel practices resulting in avoidable cruelty such as battery farming and sow crates.  Fortunately there has been a change in attitude   since a decade or so ago with consumers world-wide becoming increasingly aware and abhorrent of cruel farming practices and opting to buy ethically produced foods and goods.

The challenges described are but some of the legal loopholes in the draft animal welfare policy of which just one example is the potbellied pig (also erroneously referred to by the misnomer 'tea cup' pig .

These reside under the classification of farm animals and the problem arises when people don't do their homework properly and then take them into their homes as pets, not realizing (as with huskies) the tremendous problems which can result when the animal reaches adulthood.

The potbellied pig, raised as a four legged child in the family, then suddenly finds himself taken for slaughter in any which way as they are not even afforded the meagre legal protection of pets such as dogs and cats. Only the lucky ones land up at the animal welfare organizations.

            Perhaps the way forward would lie in creating a single Department of Animal Welfare under which all animal issues would resort, thus avoiding the current fragmentation to different  departments, such as agriculture, health, etc., of issues that are of a cross cutting nature. In this respect Adv. Paul Hoffman points out that the City of Los Angeles established such a "Department of Animal Welfare" in 1978, making them a forerunner in the sphere of  implementing and enforcing humane, modern and sensible animal welfare policies.

           

 

 

 

DO WE LEGALISE THE TRADE IN RHINO HORN?

 

 

The poaching of rhinos is escalating exponentially and the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) is currently being asked to legalise the trade in Rhino horn.  Proponents for the lifting of the ban argue that rhino numbers have increased due to rhino farming and that legalizing the trade will stop the poaching. But will this be the case?

             Retired Lawyer Chris Mercer of the Campaign Against Canned Hunting points out that any scheme to legalise the trade in rhino horns rests upon the assumption that governments can be un-corrupt, efficient (doing things right) and effective (doing the right thing). He cannot imagine a shakier foundation for a legal trade in rhino horn. To remain in power some African governments buy patronage, he says, and corruption is therefore endemic.

This statement seems to be borne out by a recent international comparative study of conservation and environmental issues by Yale University and the UNEP which placed South Africa 124^th out of 132 countries, thus reflecting badly upon South Africa's ability to conserve its natural resources.  Coupled with the fact that China, the main user of rhino horn for 'medicinal purposes' is increasingly getting a foot hold in Africa, he paints a bleak future indeed. 

Rhino breeders like John Hume feel that the answer is legalization of the trade and the continued breeding of rhinos in captivity in what Mercer described as factory farm conditions. Using a purely economical argument which disregards the fact that rhinos are sentient beings, Hume's ume'sHvision is that we "breed enough rhinos to supply the market with horns that come from live, breeding herds of rhinos and fill our game reserves and wilderness areas with horned ones."  This will not only serve the ongoing demand for medicinal purposes but also cater for hunters. He openly boasts: "The horns which I've removed are stored in banks and have increased in value like no other asset owned by myself."

             But this vision is debunked by Michele Pickover, author of Animal Rights in South Africa, who published a well researched document on the issue.  She points out that when considering the legalization of the trade in Rhino horn it is important to look to the results of lifting the ban on elephant tusks following similar arguments, that elephant numbers had increased sufficiently and legalizing the trade would stop poaching.  In fact, the opposite occurred and what we learned from the elephant ivory trade is as follows:

            Cites is an international agreement signed by 175 governments, including one of the world's major markets for illegal wildlife products - China.  After several years of polarised discussion and debate, CITES in 2008 granted China approved buyer status in the controversial sale of stockpiled ivory from Botswana, South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe. 

The argument was that a legalized, controlled trade in specimens of naturally deceased, managed and culled elephants could be used to flood the market and thereby lower demand, so reducing illegal trade and easing pressure on wild populations of endangered species.  Two years after this stockpile sale took place, environmental investigations revealed that, far from flooding the market with legal ivory to reduce demand, the sale of the stockpiles simply fuelled the demand for illegal ivory, spurring a massive increase in the poaching of elephants. Up to 90 per cent of ivory on sale came from illegal sources and prices had increased. The illegal ivory simply got laundered onto the market under cover of the 'legal' ivory.

Turning to rhinos, the species that has already teetered on the brink of extinction once in the past 30 years is once again facing a total onslaught. The current crisis has an added dimension not seen before – the involvement of organized criminal syndicates in countries which are neither range states nor major consumer markets.  This suggests the demand for rhino horn is currently at an all-time high.  What the ivory issue has taught us is that a legalized trade can never be properly monitored or regulated because the principal markets for rhino horn, including China, have failed spectacularly to fulfill commitments and has been abysmal at implementing an ivory regulation and control system.  If China cannot implement a control system designed specifically to address the problem (while at the same time satisfying demand) how on earth can it even be considered a suitable candidate for introducing a similar system for rhinos?

The organization TRAFFIC (Trade Records Analysis of Flora and Fauna in Commerce), formerly in favour of legalizing the trade in horns, have now done an about turn and concurs with Pickover's views.

There is a battle ahead – the illegal trade in wildlife and their by-products is an industry worth billions, being second only to the illegal trade in drugs.

 

 

Beatrice  Wiltshire

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GARETH PATTERSON - WILD LIFE WARRIOR

 

 

                             

The cruel bow hunting of animals has always been abhorrent to most and a recent  undercover video of a lion, bow hunted in 'canned' fashion and showing on You Tube has once again caused an international outcry. So it was timeous that Gareth Patterson, Warrior for the Wild, award winning author, environmentalist and independent wildlife researcher, should visit the Helderberg as guest of the U3A in the Strand Town Hall on Wednesday 8^th May.

      His talk entitled Inspiration from the Wilds – a life with the lions and elephants of Africa was a condensed version of his latest autobiographical book which describes his work with both lions and elephants.  In the latter case Gareth went on to prove that the Knysna elephants, considered functionally extinct, still existed. 

The field work for this independent study lasted seven years, and necessitated that he cover thousands of kilometres on foot, following ancient elephant paths through the dense Knysna  forest and surrounding mountain fynbos. He wrote up his journey in his 2009 book The Secret Elephants.

      However, it is his 1998 book Dying to be Free which describes in detail the Canned Lion scandal which rocked the world through the 1997 British investigative television documentary The Cook Report.

      Gareth, known as "Ra de Tau," father of lions as he came to be called in Botswana, was born in Britain but taken over to Africa by his parents when he was just a small baby. He developed a deep love for Africa and considers this his home.

The late George Adamson of 'Born Free' fame had a big influence on him since his ninth birthday when his mother gave him a game reserve which she had made out of paper-maché . It had mountains and water holes and plastic animals and a little zebra striped land rover. e never imagined She also gave him George Adamson's first autobiography called "Bwana Game." Obviously as a child he never imagined that one day he would work for Adamson and then, after Adamson's murder by ivory poachers, would rescue his last lion orphans and eventually rehabilitate them back into the wild.

Living in the Botswana Tuli bushlands as a member of the pride of lions consisting of the  orphan cubs – the male Batian and his two sisters Furaha and Rafiki  was an intensely spiritual experience: "In that period I learned fellowship. I was totally immersed into their world and though I had studied them before that experience it really allowed me to enter the world of lions. I was seeing the world through their eyes. I was spending far more time in the world of lions than I was in the world of human beings.  It was a very privileged time," says Gareth.

But with that privilege came a lot of pain. There were several deaths.  He lost his Lion son Batian to trophy hunters and then Furaha and two of their cubs were shot. But Rafiki lived on to produce several litters and her descendants are still out there today.

Meanwhile, early in 1991 Gareth learned that for the past two years hunters in the Eastern Cape had used bows and arrows to kill lions- with the Department of Nature Conservation's approval, it seemed. Some time later an undercover videotape came to hand which showed the sickening scene of a 'canned' trophy hunt at the Marlothi game farm situated close to the Kruger National Park's southern boundary.

 A lioness, in the prime of her life and with three suckling cubs still dependent on her, was removed from an enclosure. Refusing to leave her cubs, she was 'hunted' on the other side of the electric fence, by a German client accompanied by a professional hunter. True to form the grinning client posed hunter style for a photograph with his trophy.  In the skinning shed, the milk was shown pouring from her teats.

 His rehabilitation into the wild of the Adamson cubs complete, Gareth set about gathering information about the 'canned' hunting industry. This necessitated visiting several lion breeding facilities and experiencing first-hand the lies, the cruelty perpetrated by this industry which also allowed canned hunts to be staged for clients who were either elderly, unfit or both and therefore required 'easy' hunts.

Having gathered the necessary proof, it was time to approach the investigative Cook report team in Britain who decided to send an undercover hunting team to South Africa. The wealthy but unwell 'client' was in fact to be Roger Cook himself, the programme's veteran investigative journalist. And so Roger Cook and his team entered the sordid and secret world of the canned lion industry right up to the point where the client was supposed to pull the trigger and shoot a drugged lion. At that point Cook revealed himself. 

The resultant film sent shock waves through the world including South Africa.  But the secret industry is clearly still thriving as shown by the recent video on You Tube.

Patterson's investigations showed the link between game farms, breeding facilities, zoos and circuses whence the lions for trophies are sourced. And also the lion baiting, where wild lions are lured from conservancies such as the Kruger National Park. The industry includes the petting of 'orphan' cubs at game farms by the general public who never stop to question what happened to the cubs' mothers or what happens to the cubs once they reach adulthood.

His investigations show how all hunting in South Africa is canned. and cannot be compared to hunting in the vast stretches of wild Africa one reads about in the history books.  "Game Farmsare small areas which have been stocked with wild animals bought at game auctions,"  he says.

A recent Supreme Court of Appeal ruling held that lion farming was Mero Motu i.e.  "a closed circuit" and that since no captive bred lions have ever been released back to the wild,  lion farming had nothing to do with conservation.

Gareth feels that what is needed is a shift away from the 'sustainable use' notion that drives the hunting industry today, the mindset of 'if it pays it stays' which condemns wild animals to be viewed in economical terms rather than having an intrinsic value.

If the demand dries up perhaps game famers might become motivated to form conservancies with their neighbours for eco-tourism by dropping boundary fences to create wild areas where the natural full spectrum of species, including the predators, can once again exist.  This is the world he would like to see.

Meanwhile, this strong but sensitive man who suffered from post traumatic stress disorder consequent to the horrors he experienced, but having spent seven restorative years in the Knysna forest on the trail of the Secret Elephants, is ready to take on the lion issue again, spurred on by his motto: "Never Give Up."   

 

Beatrice Wiltshire 

RITA MILJO: AN INDOMITABLE SPIRIT

The evening of Friday 27^th July 2012 saw the end of an era.  A pioneer and legend in conservation, Rita Miljo was the first person in the world who managed to rehabilitate Chacma baboons and reintroduce them, as troops, into the wild - a feat which was regarded as impossible.  She died in a horrific blaze which destroyed her flat above the clinic, a house and much of the sanctuary she had built in the bush in the Limpopo province. 

            Born in Germany in 1931, Rita fell in love with Africa where she and her husband settled in the 1950's. Tragically, her husband and only child, a daughter, were both killed in a light airplane crash.  

            It was a chance encounter with a baby baboon not long afterwards that changed her life, setting her on a course which was to shake the foundations of conservation in South Africa. Travelling in South West Africa during the bush wars, she came upon a baby baboon, mascot to a troop of soldiers, who had been left for dead in a dustbin. Rita established that the little baboon was, in fact, only suffering from a massive alcohol overdose. A qualified pilot with her own aircraft, she managed to smuggle him over the border and back to her farm outside Phalaborwa.  And so the Centre for Animal Rehabilitation and Education (CARE) had its beginnings in 1981 with Rita claiming ever afterwards that Bobby( as she had named the little baboon) was actually the founder of the facility.

            Initially dedicated to the care, rehabilitation and protection of injured and orphaned indigenous wild animals, CARE soon specialized in the care of Chacma baboons, actively pursuing their rescue, rehabilitation and release.  It was the only facility in Southern Africa that accepted orphaned or abandoned baboons and offered them long-term care.

            They kept coming in – orphaned babies whose mothers had been shot by farmers, traumatized laboratory baboons whose release had been negotiated - the unwanted, the maimed.

    Where they could be rehabilitated and released in troops, this was done.  Others were to live out the rest of their lives without fear in large outside enclosures.  

            From the start Rita was engaged in virtually a war situation with the singularly hostile Nature Conservation officials who were determined to shut her down, baboons being classified as 'vermin' and therefore to be shot on sight. Who can forget the occasion when the feisty lady stood with a loaded shotgun between her baboons and the officials who had come to confiscate them?  The officials thought better of it and hastily retreated.

            But it was only the start, with Rita being hounded at every turn.  On one notable occasion she rushed to Mpumalanga to save the life of an orphaned baby baboon and bring him back to CARE. She was hauled before the Court where the prosecutor asked her: "Why do you waste your time on problem animals like baboons?"  Rita's reply: ¨Who are you to tell God he should not have created baboons?" had the magistrate struggling to hide a smile.  She was acquitted from the charges of moving the baby baboon without the necessary permits as she 'had acted out of necessity."

            In time the officials learned to respect (even admire) her, but the next obstacle that was thrown into CARE's path was the "destruction of original genes" dogma – it was alright to kill baboons in any way possible but if one wanted to put a Free State Baboon in touch with a Transvaal baboon, one committed the ultimate Armageddon – the destruction of their gene pool, their being considered different sub-species. "How convenient that God knew there would be four or nine provinces in South Africa," retorted Rita.

A task team of young American students was assembled by Pretoria University to go into this gene research. Rita invited some of their members to C.A.R.E. She asked the students: "Where do you obtain your blood samples to be absolutely sure that you have the right blood source for your studies?" She was informed that they just asked the guys from Nature Conversation and got sent a bag full of baboon ears.  Rita was met by a flood of emotions and tears when she offered them a knife and told them to go and cut off as many ears as they needed from her baby orphans.  "I have no idea where this particular study ended," Rita wryly informed me.

But she did afterwards travel to Pretoria to have a word with Professor Peter Henzi, the then leading primatologist in South Africa. Not long after, the taxonomy of the Chacma baboon was changed and all baboon "separate" species, from the Chacma in the South through to the North African Hamadryas baboon now became sub-species.

There were lows, such as when she was called to the hastily abandoned secret French Laboratory in the bush at Hazyview.  A dying baboon quietly handed over her baby while looking  straight into Rita's eyes as if imploring her: "Please look after my baby."  This affected Rita so much that she had to seek medical assistance. But the remaining baboons were later relocated to CARE and a proud moment was when Madiba himself attended their eventual release back into the bush.

            From 2010, when the telephone lines would permit, I had several long distance exchanges with Rita, in connection with a book I wanted to write.  During our last conversation  she described how she had partitioned off half of her lounge for her beloved Bobby. Now both old, they would share many Woolworths ready-meals, which Bobby loved. Was it prescience or Rita's famed black humour when she concluded:  "And so we sit, two oldies staring at each other as if wondering which one of us will be the first to go."

            And then the shocking news that she and Bobby had succumbed together in the horrific  blaze, the cause of which is still under investigation.

            I am reminded of Rita's words to me: "How many millions of creatures, animals and humans, never have much else in their lives – just an existence. The human species have created illusions for themselves, they call it HOPE. And if there is nothing to hope for in this world – there will be happiness in the next.  Mr. Dawkins calls this the God Delusion.  I wonder whether animals also have their own delusions called Hope or does their happiness consist of the presence of the moment only?"

            Hamba Kahle, dear friend. 

 

 

First published in Bolander by Beatrice Wiltshire