More mayhem from the Adult Baboon Camp

The adult baboons continue to be has boisterous as ever! They were recently given a whole watermelon to eat and of course they decided that it was far too much fun not to play with it before eating it. At one point Scrots decided that the watermelon made a perfect seat and perched on the top of it with great pride!

Big Momma



Scrots



The adults were also given a basketball to play with which they all duly pounced on and within minutes the ball was completely deflated which quite spoilt the adults’ fun and they soon lost interest in it! However there is one baboon who is still very pleased with the squashed basket ball – Jeffrey – who now uses the basketball as an additional security blanket, along with his stones!

Cila and some of the volunteers were recently tasked with clearing out the adults waterhole. After removing at least 7 buckets of sludgy water, Cila discovered that there was a little terrapin living in the waterhole! The terrapin has now been christened Cila and seems perfectly content with living in the waterhole surrounded by the adults. Cila the terrapin even seems to be quite happy when the baboons play with her, flipping her over and over!

We have all been keeping a close eye on Nemo of late as we suspect he may be about to launch a coup to overthrow Spock as the top male in the troop! Nemo is playing a very clever game as he is spending a lot of time grooming and courting Big Momma as he knows that she is the key to securing his way to get to the top! Lower down the ranks there has been other power shifts and Doinkievan has now made it to the 4th spot in the adult baboon ranking!



Nemo






Spock

The Senior Baboons get a rebrand!

Junior Baboons - the new name for the Senior Baboons

The senior baboons have recently gone through a ‘rebranding exercise’ and are now called the ‘Juniors’. The reason for this is that since Bonnie, Lola, Clyde and Gus were moved from the baby camp into the junior camp, the average age of the group is much younger than before and, with the exception of Bloomie, all of the baboons in this group are still very young adolescents therefore the group is now known as the Juniors.

Another change in the Juniors camp is that Marlice, with the assistance of either Abraham or Soloman, has now taken over doing the Junior walks. This means that the Junior walks tend to be a far more orderly affair then before!

The ever spoilt Bloomie was in her element recently as she was treated to a pizza! The plan was to give all of the baboons a bit of the pizza, however little miss greedy Bloomie decided that she wanted the whole pizza for herself and would let any of the other juniors anywhere near it! As each slice of pizza was thrown into the baboon camp, Bloomie would scoop them up and hold onto them with one hand whilst eating with the other. At one point she had three pieces of pizza in one hand and her mouth stuffed full of another slice!

A brief update on the baboon film shoot in South Africa – following all the work done earlier this year measuring many of our junior and adult baboons ready for their participation in a film being shot in South Africa, the film schedule has unfortunately been put back until later in the year so our budding film stars are going to have to wait a little longer to make their film debuts!

Updates from the Baby Baboons - Elvis has arrived and the babies have moved house!

February saw a brand new arrival at N/a’an ku se when Elvis, a baby baboon, was brought to our wildlife sanctuary

Elvis came to us three months ago and has grown in size and personality ever since. When he first arrived at N/a’an ku se Elvis was very shy and wary of the other baboons. However over the last few months he has become far more confident and even stands up to Carola and Shauna, the top females in the baby baboon camp!

Elvis

During the day Elvis spends his time with four other baby baboons (who have all just moved into a new camp). However, as he is only 6 months old and at the age where he would naturally still be with his mother, our volunteers still look after him over night, giving him his evening bottle feed and taking him to sleep with them so that he feels safe. Elvis is definitely the most tactile of the baboons and loves sleeping with the volunteers. However he has recently be given a new nickname – Smelvis – as he tends to have an extremely smelly nappy in the morning!



The Babies move house!

A new baby baboon camp was built last month by our volunteers and staff who worked incredibly hard preparing the ground, building the fences, creating new toys and a play area for the baboons and building wooden huts for them to sleep in at night.

The 9th of April saw the unveiling of the new camp and many of the volunteers and staff gathered to see the baby baboons try out their new home. We took them from their old smaller camp and released them into their new camp. Carola, Shauna, Rafiki, Elvis and Rudie were so excited, running around and jumping and climbing and exploring their new home!

Carola and Shauna are basking in their new realm and are definitely jointly ruling the camp! If either of them gets into a scuffle with one of the other baboons (or occasionally a volunteer!) then the other one will be there like a shot joining in the fight!

Rafiki and Elvis, after initially being rather wary of each other, are now good friends and, being typical boys, spend a lot of time play fighting. Occasionally their behaviour gets a little rambunctious so they are quickly reprimanded by Carola or Shauna!

Little Rudie has grown so much over the last few months. He is now nearly as big as Rafiki and Elvis and is becoming very much a little man. He is so much more confident and independent and absolutely adores spending time with all the volunteers, new and old, playing hide and seek and clambering over everyone at night time before he goes to bed!

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Rudie

Rafiki

Carola