The monkeys were now the enemy. For the project, and for myself, the priority quickly changed. Now the focus was on saving the baboons. Maintaining the well-documented population had a valuable scientific purpose, but I also felt I had a debt to repay to these animals, with whom I had strong emotional ties after many years of being together. To begin with, I focused on whether baboon crop raiding could be controlled using the knowledge we had about their behavior.
Baboons are adaptable generalists.
That means that they eat a lot of things from plants to insects to meat. Given this variety, it is often easier to list what baboons don't eat than what they do. Savanna groups can reach 150 individuals and forest groups of as many as 300 have been seen. Troops usually have several mature males living with females and their offspring on a permanent basis. The group is organized around females and their tight-knit families.