In the golden sunlight of a late afternoon a troop of wild baboons appears from the trees and walks into the savannah. It’s the release group from Lilongwe Wildlife Centre. They walk towards the release team, showing off their shiny fur, their big bellies and their healthy babies. They don’t need us anymore…what a year it has been. After their rough start in life they got the chance to live in the wild. Which is beautiful and free but also tough. They did so well!

Circle of life

We started out with 26 baboons, each one a unique character that we got to know and love. We knew that they couldn’t all survive – even a wild troop will lose an average of 14% of their members in a year. We expected to lose 3 or 4 at least and probably more. We worried about them every day and dreaded losing any one of them. In the end we lost two to the circle of life, we think taken by a leopard. Sad, but this is how nature works and we ended up seeing the positive and being happy that it was less than we expected! The other side of the circle of life is that three healthy babies were born and are still alive, growing, playing, being wild, and two males grew up during this year and decided to go find some new females. In a wild troop they would grow up with mothers, sisters, and aunts so it is natural for them to take off and find some unrelated ladies that they can make babies with. We still hope to run into them some time so we can see they found their place.

Who said it would be easy?

While the group walks past us the babies look at us curiously. We have been around less and less and to them we are strange creatures. The males keep them away from us and rightfully so because they should stay wild. Some of the males wear the scars of their wild life where they have fought for their place in the group as well as for their females. The wild guy that joined the group had to leave again. He thought he could have his share of the good life with our group but underestimated how much our males like their ladies and were willing to work together to keep him away from them. They have fought hard but lived to tell and their scars make them look tough and seem to be proof of their capability of living the wild life. Who said it would be easy?

Dry season

The dry season was very dry this year. Permanent water holes dried out and animals were struggling all through the park. Our baboons walked great distances to find their food and water, at that moment still helped by the wild male, and they made it through. Now the rains have started and the park is green and lush, food is abundant and water is everywhere. Time to enjoy. They don’t have to walk far and can spend some quality time with the family. They groom and play. Even the most serious adult cannot resist the playful challenge of the young ones. Then they take off. They cross the savannah into the woodland on the other side. We take one more picture. A tear drops, sad, happy, proud. They are free.

Our baboons have been doing very well. Some of the ladies got pregnant, which is a good sign. Little fights, quietly exploring their territory further. Finding the new types of food that come with each new seasons. But their wanderings didn’t go unnoticed. Other troops watched warily how our group entered their territories.

The others

There have been two main groups to contend with – “The Neighbours” and “The Others”. The Neighbours have been around since the beginning of the release. They are a small troop of nine with one big male which was no real competition for our group of 25 with four adult males. The troops checked each other out on a regular basis, they came so close to each other that a merger would have surprised nobody. In the end the alpha male of The Neighbours thought he would be better off with his females all to himself and left for different territory.
Then there were The Others. This was a different story. These were more than 30 wild baboons. With wild experience. And macho muscles! Our group wouldn’t stand a chance, that is if it wasn’t for Juri. Juri is our top alpha male who thinks he can handle them all. Alone. He would run off and chase the scouts of The Others back to their troop. There would be fights, but he never got wounded, which made him even more confident. Growing up in captivity might have affected his judgement a bit. He didn’t get wounded, because they didn’t want to hurt him but they easily could have. He didn’t get it and didn’t back off and so the tension rose.

Battle-lines

The two troops would approach each other led by the big males with the females and babies kept as far as possible from the battle-lines. One day this climaxed into a tense staring contest with both groups on either side of an open field and males from both sides closing in and sending patrols around to the other side. At this stage of the release the baboons need to fend for themselves as much as possible with preferably no interference from the release team, but on this occasion we saw Juri being pushed to his limit and something had to be done. Scared that war was at hand and our baboons would get seriously injured in a fight they could never win, we decided to add a secret weapon to the conflict: The Humans! Just standing up, showing we were there with them, gave our group a massive advantage. When The Others backed off and Juri’s ego was satisfied, our group retreated as well and the day ended in peace with all baboons in one piece.

Heavily wounded

Unfortunately Juri didn’t take this as the lesson we had hoped, and continued with his feisty ways. We took a few steps to protect the group again but realised that we would have to take a step back as we would not be able to be on hand forever. That same day Juri took off, got into a fight and got his face ripped apart which was devastating for us. But he needs to learn to fight his own battles. He calmed down after this, took time to heal and realised he cannot always win. Tough lesson.
Next thing we know, one of The Others decided to join our group. He was probably the one to injure Juri, so no discussion there. To the rest of the group he was very polite. Over a period of weeks he manoeuvred himself into the group. His tactics – a combination of hostile takeover and political moves – seems to have worked and he is currently a candidate for leadership. We have called him Alexander. Juri has recovered and still has the support of most females. Number two, Lucky, also fancies his chances, so nothing is decided yet.

Wild born babies

In the meantime those babies are not waiting for any war or takeovers. Two have been born and number three is on the way. Our fragile Magda has given birth to her firstborn, Nina. Little Richard thinks he is the father and is very protective. MacKenzie, our big number two female, gave birth to baby Cathy who is already bigger than 3 weeks old Nina. These wild born babies will see us every now and then for the next three months and from then on will live a life far from humans after this, with a true wild baboon around to show them some extra tricks for surviving in the wild!