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Image by Robert Katzki

Baboons and your crops

Save Millions & Save Baboon Lives

Good News; It is Possible to Protect Your Crops & Protect Wildlife

Baboon Proof Fencing

Keep baboons off your property completely by installing a baboon-proof electric fence.

Baboon Proof Cages

Keep baboons from accessing smaller spaces (smaller veggie patches / chicken coupes) by building a baboon-proof cage.

Manage Your Waste

Do not attract baboons onto your land & ensure your waste is managed effectively.

Baboon-Proof Fences Are Achievable & they Work

The environmental impacts of agriculture is a hot topic in the recent years and has had a lot of negative press. Similarly baboons equally have got a bad reputation, mainly due to humans encroaching on their habitats, poorly managing waste or not protecting their homes or farms.  We all have a responsibility to minimise our impact on the natural world & protect biodiversity.

Baboons are a key-role-player in ensuring a healthy biodiversity and due to humans destroying their habitats, persecuting them along with climate change it has been predicted that that chacma baboons are more under-threat than first predicted and new published science has predicted they could be extinct by 2073.

It is important to know, that agriculture and baboons can better co-exist. There are options to prevent baboons accessing crops and by adopting some baboon-proofing tips you could not only save your crops, but save biodiversity too.

Science is even producing trialed and tested ways to deter primates.  We feel the only way to truly protect crops is to erect a baboon-proof electric fence (or fully cage smaller veggie patches / chicken coupes).

Electric Baboon-Proof Fence We Installed & Use With 100% Effectiveness

We purposefully designed and installed an electric fence to protect some of our facilities from damage from a very habituated and challenging wild troop which choose to call our boundaries home.  It has been 100% effective (if the vehicle airlock is used).  We use similar fencing for our semi-wild baboon enclosures.  The fence looks clean, tidy and covers a vast area;

  • The fence has 1800x65x2.0mm diamond mesh

  • It has a concrete base around whole fence with diamond mesh secured into the base

  • There is a 3m y-standard 600mm deep into the ground & 2.4m k-standard is attached by 3 short pieces of K-std (welded) and a 500mm over hang

  • It is electrified with 29 strands (15+ and 14 earth)

  • It works on a solar system -but can be via a transformer.  We used Genex for most materials and private contractors for installation

  •  The bottom wires are not electrified (to comply with Environmental Laws & protect small wildlife species), but they are still in place to "look the part" (although likely unnecessary)

Want to get in touch about a situation we might be able to help with?

C.A.R.E. The Centre for Animal Rehabilitation & Education

Samantha Dewhirst

+27(0)825851759

Stephen Munro

+27(0)725461308

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Further reading

Virtual Fencing

Scientists in the Cape have been studying "Virtual Fencing as a New Strategy for Baboon Management"

Scientific paper on cheap fence designs

A relatively cheap fence design trialled by scientists Howlett & Hill, 2016

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