11 Ladies Rescued from a Cape Town Lab

Today officially marks my half-way point of my trip to South Africa!! 29 more days to spend with the wonderful monkeys and people! 

Although I spend the majority of my day working with the young baboons, my roommate and I are lucky enough ( lucky being a relative term) to work with eleven adult baboons rescued from a biomedical research industry in Cape Town. There was not much information disclosed about the specific lab and what kind of work they did there but we do know that the eleven female baboons rescued were never actually tested on, instead they were "play things" for the male test subjects. They were constantly harassed and attacked by these males and although the initial idea of the lab was that the girls would be mates, this never happened. So C.A.R.E worked closely with the institute and worked on moving the girls here where they would live in large outdoor enclosures and never be stuck in a tiny cage or used as basically a sex slave again. These girls will sadly never be reintroduced back into the wild, but they are definitely living a better life at C.A.R.E.

The job, although rewarding, is FAR from glamorous. Courtney and I (yes my roommate's name is Courtney--what are the chances) clean each of their enclosures, feed them and provide them with some sort of fun enrichment activity every day. Right now, four of the girls are in a large central enclosure together with the rest in single enclousers outlining the central large enclosure. Due to their...traumatic... life before C.A.R.E some of them need to be separated for the safety of them and the other girls. A lot of them are already missing some fingers and toes due to attacks back at the lab and we want to make sure the introduction of the girls into one enclosure goes smoothly and this will take a while. At the moment, this is how their set-up is.

 Each of the girls has a very distinct personality (like all of the baboons here), but for the most part, most of them are still very weary of humans. However, slowly and surely, they are getting to know Courtney and I and begin to trust us a little more every day. What is great about this enclosure for these girls is that some of them get to have a lot of interaction with the babies, which is enrichment on its own. The girls love the babies and groom them and lipsmack them through the fence. Just like humans, everyone loves a cute baby! Amazingly, these females, who have never been around babies before know exactly how to act with them, and its quite sweet to watch the interactions.

Some of the enrichment activites we give them:

• Popsicle's with fruit, seeds, veggies and juice
•  Pvc pipes stuffed with branches hay peanut butter and treats
• vitamin balls (made up of a carb, juice, peanut butter, vitamins and milk powder)
• logs with holes drilled in filled with peanut butter and jam
• balls 
• raisins and seeds scattered throughout the enclosure 
• popcorn stuffed into open tennis balls 

• Ayanna: means beautiful flower, very shy of humans and other baboons but is getting braver every day, she will now groom Cecilia who is next to her
• Cora: loves the babies and grooming them but has a fiery temper, in a fight with one of the other girls she got a very bad broken hand...that hasn't stopped her though!
• Ella: a smile only a mother could love, she has two kind of buck teeth and a lack of baboon social skills, she is the youngest and was in captivity for most of her life which is why she seems to be struggling so much with life as a baboon
• Cecilia: loves her meal times and is a sweet baboon who is very observant of her surroundings
• Janine: the first of the girls to get a swelling at C.A.R.E. and was SO proud of it, I think having the swelling really made her more confident in the troop, she is a lover not a fighter :)
• Hope: gets very very very excited (and vocal) for meal time...and for the babies meal time. She loves the babies but loves their food a bit more.
• Joanie: one of the two oldest females she is gentle and keeps to herself. She loves the enrichment and goes crazy for popcorn and raisins
• Sammie Jo: sweet and shy she loves to perch on the top of the beams in the center room and watch over everything happening. Very close to Joanie
• Magogo: Her name means old lady in Zulu and she is the oldest of the females. She is smart and opinionated and loves her corn and raisins
• Tao: probably the most trusting of humans of all of the baboons she is sweet and very observant, she spends most of her days watching what everyone else is up to and making sure everyone is ok (is also a big fan of feed time)
• Maya: sweet and confident she loves the babies and spends a lot of time by their enclosure watching them and grooming them.

Cora

Ayanna

Cecilia

Ella

Hope

Janine

Joanie

Magogo

Sammie Jo

Tao

Maya