Baboon task team’s plans must be reset

Fran Gebhardt, Scarborough Village Association

An urgent reset to the the Cape Peninsula Baboon Management Joint Task Team’s plans must be announced (“Terminating baboon management plan questionable,” Bulletin, July 4)

We don't need a bunch of part-timers crippled by bureaucracy and politics. We need a dedicated team of experts, scientists and business managers for a three-to-five-year plan.

We need strategic electrified game fences and monitors. We need waste monitors empowered with law enforcement duties. We need action for the sake of the conservation of this isolated yet protected species.

At the very least and as a matter of extreme urgency now, we need the JTT and Joint Baboon Operational Team (JBOT) to take responsibility for the monitor programme to continue after year-end and for SANParks to take back their Groot Olifantsbos troop as well as their so-called "reserve" troop, which are becoming increasingly habituated in Scarborough.

Step up to the plate, Table Mountain National Park.

• The Bulletin sent this letter to the Cape Peninsula Baboon Management Joint Task Team for a response, but we did not get one by time of publication.