Concerned residents in Pringle Bay asked about the ‘new’ collar fitted to one of the female baboons of the Pringle Bay Baboon troop and wondered why the baboons must be collared.

PBF1 was fitted with a tracking collar in December 2019 and her collar was replaced with a new collar in February 2022.

The collars allow the management team to monitor the troop’s whereabouts. This is done so that the service provider is able to set up their action plans to stop the baboon troop from entering the urban edge as per the Strategic Baboon Management Plan of Overstrand Municipality.

The collars used in the Overstrand are in line with best practices under international standards which states that the collar needs to weigh less than 5% of the body weight of an animal; in the Overstrand the service provider keeps the collar weight at 3% of the animal’s body weight. PBF1’s collar weighs 2% of her body weight. 

Overstrand baboons are fitted with Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite collars and do not have flashing lights.

Grooming of baboons

Residents also noticed that the collared baboon is being attended to a lot by other baboons and wondered about that.
As previously stated, PBF1 is the Alpha female of the Pringle Bay troop and that is why she is being groomed by so many other baboons.  As the Alpha female, her hierarchy status gives her this privilege in the troop structure and that is why she will always be seen to be groomed by other baboons.

What happened to some of the baboons?

The other collared females of the Pringle Bay troop (referred to as PBF2), died of old age; PBF3 was killed by a leopard in the mountains of Pringle Bay and an unmarked/unnamed female died of her injuries after a dog viciously attacked her and the vet could not save her because of the extent of her injuries.  This female was in town when this happened.