Conflict between humans and baboons can tear communities apart. Shirley C. Strum has studied wild olive baboons in Kenya for more than 50 years. In that time she’s come to understand the species intimately. In this article she argues that humans have taken from nature (without asking) for too long. And that now it’s time for us to rethink this relationship.
What have you learnt about baboon behaviour and habits over the past 51 years?
During my studies I have found that baboons are smart and sophisticated, and they need each other to be successful because of an unwritten “golden rule” – “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.
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Baboons aren’t yet endangered, because they adapt to new human environments. Part of this adaptability includes flexible primate hands (not trunks or hooves), primate intelligence, and the combined knowledge of their social group.
My research over the decades has provided a great deal of evidence of this.
As far as conflict with wildlife is concerned, you can’t ignore the growth in human population everywhere. In 1972, when I started my research, Kenya’s population was 12 million. Now it is pushing 60 million people.
This rate of population growth means more land is used for infrastructure and food. Development has converted wildlife areas into rural, suburban and urban human environments over the last 50 years.
As a result, human-wildlife conflict has increased. In Kenya, most wildlife exists in parks, reserves and surrounding areas. Kenya Wildlife Service recorded 10,000 episodes in these areas in 2024.
My research demonstrated that the cost of raiding has to outweigh the benefits for the baboons. Once tasted, human foods, including field crops, are ideal. Baboons are a special case of conflict because they can outsmart most humans. And baboons can be very destructive when they lose their fear of humans as they have in some parts of Cape Town, South Africa.
How can baboons be stopped from raiding farms and homes?
This depends on both the context and the history of baboon troops in the area.
The best solution to resolving conflicts is to prevent them. Changing human behaviours is difficult. And preventing bad baboon behaviour – like raiding human foods – is easier than trying to change baboon behaviours once they occur.
But this is an increasingly rare opportunity today because of the humanisation of the landscape.
What approaches have been tried and which ones have been successful?
The Gilgil Baboon Project – after translocation it became the Uaso Ngiro Baboon Project – started on a 45,000 acre (18,000 hectare) cattle ranch with more wildlife than cattle. We tried many control techniques, old (guarding and chasing) and new (playback of baboon alarm calls, leopard scats and lithium chloride taste aversion).
The ranch was then sold to Gikuyu Embu Meru Association, which distributed land to its members. Baboons began enjoying the new foods, raiding crops regularly.
Research demonstrated that the costs of raiding had to outweigh the benefits for baboon to stop raiding. It might surprise you that baboons do not eat human food out of spite but because of deep evolutionary imperatives. Their foraging aim is always to get the most nutrition for the least expenditure of energy.
Once tasted, human foods are special. They are large packages of easy to digest fare, the equivalent of baboon fast food. This makes baboons very difficult to control given the benefit of eating human food.
Some observations about solutions.
Boundaries: To prevent baboons raiding, you must draw a line beyond which baboons cannot go and reinforce it frequently and consistently. Given how much a baboon has to gain, she or he can devote plenty of time to waiting for the right moment.
Because of the growth of human population, many places already have baboon raiders. In this case, fields must be guarded by people all the time, homestead doors and windows can’t be left open (unless window bars prevent baboons of any size getting in) and many other human time-consuming and costly coping behaviours have to be used to control baboon raiding.
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Remember, to control raiding the cost must exceed the benefit. You have to use up baboon time, forcing them to look for other things to eat. But harming a baboon doesn’t work unless it is directly linked to the raiding and in full view of the rest of the group.
If the baboon habit of eating human food has become a “tradition”, it is difficult to extinguish.
Translocation: If you have enough money and time, translocating the baboons might be an alternative. Translocation means moving them to a new place in their historical range. I pioneered translocation for primates in 1984 when I moved three troops from Kekopey Ranch near Gilgil, Kenya to a place where crops couldn’t grow, the Eastern Laikipia Plateau in Kenya.
Today, however, there are very few places left where baboons can’t get into trouble.
Killing: The final option is to remove the baboons. I call it “killing” because fancy names don’t hide the reality. However, it isn’t as easy as it sounds. You first need to understand baboons. Second, the baboons can’t be killed by a helicopter gunship or even professional hunters. They are too wily. Killing a whole baboon group has its challenges. Even if you succeed (which I doubt), removing one group from a population means another troop will soon take its place.
These are hard choices that I don’t take lightly. It is one thing to view wildlife from the safety of your home or vehicle but another to have baboons steal your food, take your livestock, or decimate your crops.
What needs to change?
Human views about baboons have changed over the last 50 years from positive to negative. Today, social media is rife with conflict between baboons and humans in southern Africa. Nature is real, but our ideas about nature are cultural and based on our experiences and attitudes.
We are faced with a difficult dilemma: humans cause the problem but wild creatures pay the price. Conflict between baboons and humans won’t change unless human behaviour and attitudes change.
Dr Strum has a new book published by Johns Hopkins University Press: Echoes of Our Origins: Baboons, Humans and Nature. It is available on Amazon US and Amazon UK.
Shirley C. Strum does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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Fun South African Fact: Vilakazi Street in Soweto has been home to two Nobel Peace Prize winners. A tour through Soweto will always stop at Vilakazi Street to reveal a number of heritage sites of great importance to democratic South Africa. Both Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu lived here at some point in their lives. In 1984, Archbishop Desmond Tutu received the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition for his non-violent fight against the apartheid regime. Nine years later in 1993, Nelson Mandela shared the Nobel Peace Prize with then-president F.W. de Klerk as an award for their role in bringing about the peaceful end of apartheid. Nelson Mandela then went on to become South Africa’s first democratically elected president in 1994.