Al-Marsad Newspaper: The writer, Dr. Badr bin Saud, commented on the Environment Ministry’s use of a British expert to lead the science team for the program to assess baboon damage in the Kingdom.
Brutal ways
Badr bin Saud said in his article titled “Kill Them” published in the newspaper “Okaz”: “The Saudi Environment Ministry has hired a British expert, her name is Paula Peepsworth, and this expert is leading the scientific team to the baboon damage assessment program in the Kingdom, and you said, some time ago, that citizens have a responsibility to feed these monkeys, and this opinion was attached by employees of the Saudi Wildlife Conservation Center, and they started repeating it on various occasions as if it were a sequence of a Mexican series, and the truth is that stopping feeding the monkeys at this stage, and after they have become accustomed to it for many years, will double their attacks on farms, houses and people, and it will make the problem worse and not solve it, and the proof is what the Australian camels did, almost four years ago, when the forests burned down and water and food became scarce, and how they took over high on the homes and farms of Australians in brutal ways, and they took their share of what they were able to achieve.
Al-Mazayen and the camel
He pointed out: “The Australian government, at that time, didn’t stop short of animal rights, and issued a decision to get rid of thousands of camels every year, by shooting them from helicopters, in a way that achieves biological conservation.” balance, and the protection of farms, crops and vital water sources, and also reduces the methane gas that comes out of camel and animal droppings in general, and this gas causes global warming, and the camels were brought by the British to Australia from Australia India, Afghanistan and the Middle East, and some of them may have been allowed to participate in auctions and camels within the Kingdom.
baboons
He continued: “The Australian method is shared by most Saudi specialists, and they prefer to use it to reduce baboon numbers to what they were 50 years ago, in a way that neutralizes their aggressive behavior towards citizens and tourists, and their tampering with tourist destinations in their places of intense presence in the south-west of the Kingdom, so that they can outnumber their numbers”. with them the leftovers and distort the place and confuse people, observing that the figure on which they rely, which is 330,000 monkeys, dates back to an old census that took place in 1987, or 36 years ago, and it is probable that the numbers current are in the millions.
Deforestation and poaching
He pointed out: ‘The reasons for the expansion of the Hamadrias baboons are known, and perhaps the most important of them is environmental confusion due to the scarcity of predators that depend on them for their diet, such as the Arabian leopard, hyenas, wolves, lynxes. and others, and citizens complaining about baboons, they used to poison and kill predators in the past, in addition to grazing, logging, poaching, and Agricultural and residential expansion, and the establishment of main and mountain roads taking targeting the natural habitats of baboons, as well as the fact that baboons are ideal carriers of about 15 serious diseases, the most important of which is AIDS.
Chemical sterilization of monkeys
And he continued: “I do not lean towards the solutions that are being studied on the chemical or surgical sterilization of monkeys, and I believe that killing is better, and His Eminence the former Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Baz has authorized the killing of the harmful monkey, or that the balance is restored by slaughtering them and feeding them to predators in reserves and zoos, or issued at “cheap for the countries you prefer as food” prices.
