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!

It has been a while since you received an update from us – but no news is generally good news, the baboons are doing great! The rains have stopped, so they have to walk larger distances to find enough food. Juri is leading the group into unknown territory with unexpected confidence . He will lead them to places with fruits and seeds they have never seen before in their life, but they know exactly what to eat or not. Stuffing themselves all day, they make up for the long distances they walk. Only sometimes Juri, also known as “The Soldier” will speed up so fast that the mothers with their babies and the ones dreaming along will lose the group. Making loud contact calls to each other through the forest, they will find each other again and there is always a happy reunion.

From boys to men

Everybody is still growing, so there are some changes in the hierarchy of the group. The ones growing faster are taking over from the ones staying behind. This way shy Yari, who was often alone and not very popular, has become a big male that took the third place in rank. Now the ladies finally notice him! Still this doesn’t mean he gets to make babies…when the females are in oestrus, Juri will not let anybody near
them, guarding them all day. Only little (well also becoming less little every day) Josh has found a way around that. You see, the ladies sleep together in one tree, far from the men, who have to protect the group at the edge of the sleeping site. Little Josh found out and decided to pay the ladies a visit early in the morning, when everybody is still asleep. He will wake the girl with some friendly grooming and then…well Juri hasn’t found out so far.

Richard and Magda

In the meantime Richard and Magda are still going steady, foraging together at the edge of the group. Richard will always greet us in the morning and then continue as usual. Both him and his girl are never disturbed by us, so we can get quite close, which makes them favourites for observation. Sometimes they use this to their advantage. They found out that eating behind the humans, makes sure that almost all other animals stay away so they won’t take their food! Off course we don’t want to mess with hierarchy, but our couple being low ranked and skinny as they are, sometimes deserves a break.

Mother Mary

It’s not all a bed of roses. In the highest ranks, things have been tough. Mary, our alpha female, gave birth to a baby that had problems from birth. The baby didn’t look very normal and Mary seemed a bit insecure how to handle her. This is strange since we often call Mary “Mother Mary” because she is so good with all the babies.
In the end the baby died. This was very sad and Mary called out for her baby a couple of days. Luckily now she has directed all of her motherly love to the other babies, taking care of them, defending them and grooming a lot. Even the ones that are officially not even babies anymore enjoy the attention they are getting.

Protection

Luckily Juri and the other males are helping to keep any more bad news at bay. Protecting the group so well, that the leopards, hyenas, birds of prey, snakes and even the solitary lion roaming the release site, haven’t found a chance to harm any of our baboons. Also the group seems to know better and better how to respond to danger. Last week a massive snake moved around their foraging site. There were alarm calls and everybody did what they had to do, but there was no big panic. They moved out of its way far enough and studied it from there. We were quietly proud of how they responded, thinking that actually our baboons were quite cool. They are living their wild life, being more and more independent, following their instincts and learning along the way. We follow them, study them and enjoy watching them grow.