Lulu and Lala

During my time at Naankuse, I also got to be involved in a baby baboon rescue mission. One of the sub-adult baboons gave birth shortly after I arrived at the sanctuary. This was an unplanned pregnancy from the sanctuary's point of view and was the result of a wild baboon visiting the baboon enclosure. The staff knew that there could be some problems for the new mum, Lala, and her baby, Lulu, because Lala was very low in the social structure of the group so they kept a close eye on the situation. A few days later, one of the dominant females who had been showing signs of jealousy stole the baby and wouldn't give it back. The staff waited for a few hours, but eventually had to make the decision to intervene before the baby got dehydrated and malnourished. The plan was to tranquilise the kidnapper, but the baboons recognise both the tranq gun and Rudie, the only person with a tranq gun license, and get aggravated. In order to try and keep the baboons calm and make it easy to get a good shot they decided to take a new approach and get us all involved. Our job was to cluster around Rudie and walk him to the baboon enclosure so that the baboons wouldn't spot him in the crowd. It worked perfectly and they successfully managed to reunite mother and baby and move them into an enclosure with a younger group of baboons where Lala would be more dominant and not face the same problems again.

Lala and Lulu recovering from their ordeal before being moved into another enclosure