The Baboon Buddy Project
In mid-1996 SAAV launched a campaign to close down the animal unit at the National Centre for Occupational Health, where 621 baboons over a number of years were needlessly dusted with asbestos fibres. As our campaign developed we were able to negotiate the remaining eight baboons (destined to be killed) away from the NCOH and the animal unit was closed down. The Baboon Buddy Project was started in order to fund their rehabilitation and provide these baboons, who had spent almost ten years in small lab cages, with a new lease on life. Their condition, both mentally and physically has improved miraculously since they have been at their new home at the Centre for Animal Rehabilitation and Education (CARE), which is on the banks of the Oliphants river. A wild troop of baboons visits the Centre and the ex-research baboons have re-learnt their lost skills. It is SAAV's intention to build on this Project and rescue and rehabilitate as many indigenous primates languishing in South African labs as we can.
The project has been very successful, and has contributed to the rehabilitation of many other baboons which came from captive circumstances. CAPE, a baboon supply depot in Hazyview, was closed down and the baboons they had in cages were relocated to CARE. They were rehabilitated and released at the Dome in the Free State. A large group of baboons was confiscated from a trapper in the Waterberg, Erich Venter. These baboons also went to CARE, where they lived for a year in the central part of the Baboon Buddy Project enclosure. They were also released, this time at Letaba Ranch, Phalaborwa.
The original baboons are still in their enclosure, living fulfilled and peaceful lives. Regular maintenace to the enclosure is required and anyone wanting to contribute towards this project can deposit funds in the Baboon Buddy Project account, indicating Baboons as a reference.
On the night of Thursday 28th November 1996, after months of anxiety, frustration and planning, we finally set off on our nine hour journey to a better life. I wish I could use the word 'freedom' but the unhappy reality is that the impact of laboratory existence is so pervasive, so intense, so deeply disturbing and so monstrous that total and unscarred recovery would be a miracle.
Their lives had been taken away from them in that place. What we were hoping to do through the Baboon Buddy Project is to give it back to them.
The day I first met the eight baboons, the "Control Group", (as they were detachedly referred to by the lab) I cried. I cried because they were so sad. I cried because it hit me in the face that it was so totally unnatural, so totally immoral, to restrict these big, magnificent, wild primates to tiny 1m x 1m cages. I cried because the people in the lab did not see their individual suffering but only saw them as tools. I cried because it seemed incomprehensible that society could allow this to go on. I never stopped crying and I never will.
They had huge numbers tattooed across their chests and I assumed that the vet who was meant to care for them was responsible for this heartless deed. It strikes me as incongruous that the veterinary profession which exists to supposedly soothe away pain is actually an accomplice and administers torture. We immediately gave them names - not only because we wanted to acknowledge their individuality, but also because we wanted the people in the lab to feel uncomfortable with that fact.
Hundreds of baboons had died in this lab in the eight and a half years these eight had been there. And each one of them has been affected by this. Guinny, Sybil and Rhona were in one room. Rhona's cage was at the door and she perpetually looked down the passage awaiting her inevitable doom. Sybil had lost all her hair and went around and around in her cage in continuous circular motions. In the next room were Gerald and Nathan, two huge and aggressive males. Gerald often violently shook his cage and barked in obvious frustration. Nathan was the observer and came to Gerald's defence whenever he could. Next door were Winston, Toby and Dibs. Winston was sad. So sad that he often sat in a "corner" and never moved from there. But, occasionally there was a spark and he would communicate with the others by letting out a loud "waaooh". Toby was very shy and in pain. He could barely eat.
There was something wrong with his teeth. We pointed this out to the lab vet who, not surprisingly, had never noticed it. Dibs was afraid and distracted and spent hours clinging to the top of his cage where he could peer out of the window of the room.
They had also been deprived of their basic and essential need to touch one another. They were all stressed and afraid. Afraid of humans. Humans who prodded them with metal sticks, squeezed them in crush cages and hurt and injured them. Humans who had no regard for them. For almost a decade, this was their life in that noisy, terrorizing lab. It must have been far worse when these rooms were filled to capacity with baboons. The screaming, the fear, the stress. We had been alerted of their plight by a person who worked across the busy street from the lab. She told us she dreaded going to work as each day she knew she would have to listen to their agonizing screams.
Three weeks before the move the lab allowed me, as the SAAV representative, to come in from 07h00 - 08h00 each day to give them fresh fruit and vegetables. The two porridge balls a day may have been convenient and easy for the lab, but we were worried about the physical condition of the baboons and we hoped that a more natural diet would help. The males were hopelessly overweight and obviously unfit. They were not getting any exercise and could barely move around in their cages. The vet had told me that she had been giving all of them (males included) depro provera (a controversial progesterone based contraceptive). She said it calmed them. She was conducting her own research about the effects of depro provera on baboons and I wondered if it had been sanctioned by the NCOH and whether "scientifically" a control group could be experimented on anyway. The depro provera had probably played a role in their weight gain. Who knows what other negative side effects it has had on their organs?
The eating of the fresh fruit and vegetables became the highlight of their day. They relished the new tastes and each had their personal favourites. Toby looked forward to the pawpaw as it was soft and seemed not to hurt his mouth. Slowly they began to trust me and I could put my hand down the funnel in their cages and they would gently take the offering from me. Rhona and Guinny would occasionally allow me to groom them and this was a great honour. Although I got a strong sense that they knew that I was not there to harm them, there was always an element of mistrust and nervousness. They were all desperate individuals who, understandably, could not allow their guard to come down. Hope was not something that thrived in that place.
One day, as I came in to feed them, I heard a huge commotion coming from the room where the girls, Guinny, Sybil and Rhona, were housed. The next moment I heard glass breaking and then the two handlers came running out of the room with nets and disappeared out the door and down the stairs. I raced into the room and to my horror I discovered that Sybil's cage was open and that she had run right through the glass window. The lab is on the second floor and in the middle of a densely populated area. I looked down into the street expecting to see Sybil's body but she was nowhere to be seen. There was blood all over the broken glass and I knew she must have been injured. Apparently she had managed to undo the wire on her cage (something they did often, I was told later) and had hidden in the dilapidated ceiling in the room. The handlers chased her with a hose pipe and nets and she was so terrified that she went through the glass. Seven hours later she was eventually found, petrified and hurt, in an empty ward in a nearby hospital. She was darted and stitched and brought back to the lab. We had always been very worried about Sybil because it was very obvious that life in the laboratory had severely affected her. But she had managed to weather this terrible ordeal and I realised that she had an enormous will to survive. We were in a quandary about what to do about Toby's teeth. We were concerned about the effects of anaesthetic but we also knew that his teeth had to be attended to before the move so we got permission from the lab for an anaesthetist and a dentist to take a look. The day Toby was to be operated on I arrived at the lab to discover that they had "prepared" Nathan instead of Toby. When I said "but this is Nathan" I was told "we go according to number here" and I replied "well we go according to name and this is Nathan!"
Toby's mouth was in a disgusting state. He had many abscesses and the dentist had to remove eight teeth. He would never be able to masticate properly and would need major reconstructive surgery. But, sadly, Toby never recovered from the 4 hour operation and he died the next day of "multiple organ failure". The day of their rescue was so close yet we would never be able to help Toby feel the grass beneath his feet.
And so, there were seven.
We planned to move the baboons at night when it would be cooler and less stressful for them. Value Truck Rentals had kindly donated the use of a large truck and an experienced driver. Since they had been trapped they had been kept apart and in individual cages and this meant that the only way we could move them was in their individual lab cages.
During our various discussions with the NCOH it had been made very clear to us that for as long as the baboons were in the NCOH building they "owned" them and that we could only take custody of them once they had left the building. Practically, this meant that while the baboons were in the lab we had no say about the way it went about doing things and this included the uncaring manner in which they treated the baboons.
The day of the long awaited move arrived. The lab insisted on moving them out of their animal unit as soon as possible and into their basement, where their responsibility would be almost ended and where the baboons could easily be carried to the truck. The basement was where medical waste was stored and where thousands of miners lungs hung in strongly smelling bags of formaldehyde.
By the time I reached the lab at 09h00 they had already began to "prepare" the baboons for their move into the basement. What I was faced with was an intimate view of what goes on in a vivisection laboratory. It was horrifying. The baboons were extremely stressed. The handlers were talking at the tops of their voices and noisily moving the designated travelling cages into the various rooms where the baboons were housed. Wire grids were clangourously hammered into their cages and one by one the baboons were callously prodded with metal rods and forced into the section of the cage where they were helplessly crushed and mildly sedated. The baboons knew what was coming. Obviously, judging from their behaviour, this had happened many times before. Very often it had meant death to their fellow inmates. They screamed in fear and terror, each desperately trying to avoid the inevitable.
By midday they had all been moved to the bad-smelling basement. The handlers were gone, never to return. Our truck was only set to arrive at 18h00. We immediately moved their cages as close together as we could. For the first time they could all see one another. At once there was much smacking of lips (baboons do this as a form of affection and communication), general interest and curiosity in each other. Nathan and Rhona tried to touch through the small holes in their cages. Sybil was very stressed and I put a blanket over the top of her cage to try and make her feel more secure but she would occasionally hop down onto the floor of her cage to furtively observe the others.
As more SAAV and CARE representatives arrived to assist with the move the atmosphere became charged with a mixture of excitement and relief. I do not know if the baboons sensed it too or if they realised that they were in the process of being rescued, but they were very calm when, one by one, we hoisted them aboard the awaiting truck. Once they were loaded we covered them with blankets and securely strapped their cages to the sides of the truck.
We, Guinny, Rhona, Sybil, Gerald, Nathan, Winston, Dibs, Alan from SAAV, Klaas the driver and myself, pulled away from the NCOH at exactly 20h00. Gien and Monica from CARE followed us in their car. We did not look back. We did not want to.
We were worried about our fellow travellers and made at least half a dozen stops on the way to check on them. Mostly they slept, but occasionally they would eat some fruit or talk to one other. We were amazed at how well they were handling the long trip. Finally, at 04h30, the next morning, we turned into the bumpy dirt road that leads to CARE.
The sides of the truck could open completely so once we stopped at CARE we opened all the doors. CARE is on the Oliphants River and is situated in the bush. While we were making last minute arrangements the baboon gazed out in noticeable awe at the trees, the grass and the birds.
The size of the relocation truck prevented it from going all the way to the enclosures so we had to move two of the baboons at a time on a smaller vehicle from the truck to the enclosures. We did not know how they were going to react to their new homes so we had made a decision to place the lab cages in the enclosures in case they felt the need to retreat back into them. Nathan and Gerald were carried in first, followed by Rhona, Sybil, Dibs, Guinny and Winston.
As we opened their lab door cages they all bolted out. Winston, Gerald, Nathan and Guinny went to their large drinking troughs and jumped in. In the lab the only access they had to water was a small trickle via a narrow tube which the baboons had to push hard using their mouths. A large body of water was obviously irresistible! Once they were out of there lab cages we truly saw how life in a laboratory had physically affected them. Their movements were very slow and their back leg muscles wasted. Their breathing also became hard and heavy with any small amount of activity.
Almost a month has passed since they were relocated to CARE and already there are noticeable changes, both in their behaviour and physically. Although Sybil often withdraws back into her lab cage, her hair that she lost in the lab as a result of stress, has started to grow back again. In the lab they were either stressed, depressed, angry and lethargic but at CARE they are observably stimulated and they are showing an interest in life. They notice every movement in the bush around them, they look out at the trees and the sky, they watch the insects and they are once again a part of nature. A troop of wild baboons visits CARE almost daily and the ex-research baboons spend hours interacting and communicating with them. In this way they are re-learning lost behavioural skills and patterns. Intuitively they have started digging for roots and insects and they communicate and groom one another on a regular basis.
I know that they are not yet in the ideal situation but I feel optimistic that with time, with support for this project from the public and with the empathetic attention they receive from Rita, the Director of CARE, that at least they have a bright future ahead of them.
The vivisecting community may desperately want to fool themselves, and others, that the thousands of baboons that they cruelly force into lab cages are merely unfeeling tools of their unnecessary science, but, these baboons are living proof that this is not so. They are unique individuals who have been made to suffer enormously, and who, despite this, are still wild baboons whose desire to live out their lives as such remains powerful and intact. I will, forever, hold their individual strength, endurance and will to survive in awe.
December 1996
The passing of Nathan.
