There’s been much online fur flying and name-calling over my column urging the public to not feed our vervet monkeys.
It did give me pause to think about how we as a society handle disagreements.
Instead of calling me up and having an friendly discussion about why you disagree, or even writing to the paper, many people chose to rant on social media and attack my character.
In 1906 English writer Evelyn Beatrice Hall famously wrote in her book The Friends of Voltaire, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”. My sentiments exactly.
Society is made richer by understanding, even celebrating, that people are going to have different opinions.
Yes, it’s uncomfortable to have our value systems challenged. But by virtue of the fact that I disagree with someone does not make them a bad person.
Disagreement, from the extreme left to the extreme right, and having our beliefs challenged is crucial to our development as people.
South African satirist Mokokoma Mokhonoana put it like this: “We seldom learn much from someone with whom we agree.”
Our increasing intolerance for each other’s views – most vividly seen on online platforms – fills me with unease and I believe is symptomatic of all that is wrong with the world.
As Canadian author and clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson said in his book 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, “Intolerance of others’ views (no matter how ignorant or incoherent they may be) is not simply wrong; in a world where there is no right or wrong, it is worse: it is a sign you are embarrassingly unsophisticated or, possibly, dangerous.”
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A criticism about my previous column was that I did not do enough research locally and that the examples I used were not vervets. Fair enough. So I spoke to a few South African experts to see what they thought.
First I called up Dave Du Toit, director and co-founder of the Vervet Monkey Foundation in Limpopo.
He has been working with vervets for the past 30 years and runs a successful rehabilitation programme. Dave was adamant that you do not want monkeys to associate food with people for a number of reasons. Primarily because when you feed them, especially by hand, they lose their natural fear of humans.
Interestingly he said that feeding monkeys by hand also communicates to them that humans are “lower ranking in the troop than they are”.
“By feeding them you are behaving like a low-ranking monkey and will be treated accordingly.”
He said monkeys that have been ‘tamed’ by people who hand feed them can become a problem. He cautioned that if monkeys were to be fed it should only be done with professional advice and only via a feeding station that was not near people.
“People tend to feed them the wrong foods and encourage them to stay in a particular area too long. It is far better to plant fruit-bearing trees!”
He did concede that there might be a valid reason to feed the monkeys but this should only be done on a case-by-case basis.
“There are plenty of natural food sources available to monkeys. They have a varied diet and even grasses provide a food source.”
Dave said setting up a feeding station may be helpful if, for example, monkeys were causing a problem at a school.
The station would be set up in such a way as to intercept the monkeys before they reached the school and thereby prevent unhelpful interactions between the kids (walking about with food at break time) and the opportunistic primates.
To sum up his position: technically you could feed monkeys without harming them if all the correct precautions were taken, but it is not necessary to feed them, so why take the risk?
Next I spoke to Tracy Rowles of Umsizi Umkomaas Vervet Rescue Centre on the South Coast. She too warned against feeding monkeys, saying it was “not the best idea”.
Like Dave she believes vervets are a greatly misunderstood species. Feeding them could result in monkeys stealing food from people and exhibiting frightening behaviour.
“Vervet monkeys are very unlikely to attack you. Usually when they are showing aggressive behaviour it is only as a warning to you because they themselves feel threatened,” said Tracy, who has been bitten only once in 15 years of handling monkeys.
“They may have an injured troop member, for example, which would cause them to be protective if you came close. It is people who hand feed them that make them into a nuisance,” she said, echoing Dave’s sentiments.
“There is no need to feed them. You also create a problem for anyone who might move into your home after you as the monkeys would have come to expect food from you.”
My conclusion is that if the experts want to set up controlled feeding stations in a regulated and professional manner then by all means, go ahead.
The problem is that the majority of feeding of our vervets in residential areas is currently unregulated and in my opinion, doing the monkeys no favours.
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