[Project] Tsaobis Baboon – Behaviour, health and genetics of wild baboons

Updated 17/08/20

2000 - 2022

Namibia

Baboons are intelligent and highly adaptable animals that live in social groups consisting of migrant males, resident females, and their young. The Tsaobis Baboon Project is a long-term study of a desert baboon population in Namibia.

Objectives

The aim of the Tsaobis Baboon Project is to carry out fundamental research in behavioural ecology and population ecology using desert baboons as a model system. The scientists explore how social animals like baboons meet a variety of daily challenges, including how to find food, avoid predators, acquire mates and raise offspring. The findings of the research provide new insights into the lives of these fascinating animals, as well as informing the conservation and management of social species more generally. The work also has interest in the effects of complex social structure on population dynamics and extinction.

card discover — © CNRS - Elise Huchard

The scientists are observing a group of baboons in Namibia.

The Tsaobis Baboon Project is based at Tsaobis Nature Park, on the edge of the Namib Desert, in central Namibia. The scientists work with two troops of chacma baboons (Papio ursinus), each of about 60 individuals. Each baboon is individually recognisable, of known age, and of known relatedness to other individuals in the population.