Living with Baboons Natural World

In the deserts of Ethiopia, lives an extraordinary monkey -

the Hamadryas baboon.

REGGAE MUSIC

They live, cheek-by-jowl, in close-knit families.

Young babes-in-arms with their mothers,

feisty teenagers, ready to leave home,

and wise old grandparents who've seen it all before.

As with all families, sometimes they fall out.

THEY SCREECH

These are clever animals,

with complex relationships.

For the last five years,

one man has given up everything to try to understand them.

He knows them all by name.

They trust him to walk among them,

and he looks out for them when they run into trouble.

HE BARKS

They share their home with the local tribe,

who shoot baboons for target practice.

Life with the baboons is full of ups and downs,

and this year is going to be very special indeed.

Awash National Park

lies in the scorched desert lowlands

of eastern Ethiopia.

It was once the favourite hunting ground

of the emperor Haile Selassie,

and his favourite spot for bathing was a volcanic hot spring

in the middle of the desert.

Today, this very same palm oasis

is home to a very special band of Hamadryas baboons.

They live high in the cliffs in one large group, over 200-strong.

There's no single leader in the group,

but the lion-like males rule the roost,

and lord it over their harems of females.

For the last five years,

every detail of the baboons' lives

has been intimately observed

by a pair of biologists -

Australian Mat Pines,

and his Ethiopian assistant, Teklu Tesfaye,

are now honorary members of the family.

It's a very special feeling to be amongst wild animals,

and to be accepted by them -

to be considered almost part of their environment.

I don't know if they actually consider me as another baboon,

or whether they consider me just another animal in their environment

that's safe to be around.

Being amongst them is almost like watching a soap.

Watching the day-to-day things going on.

There are a number of individuals here

that I absolutely adore.

Every time I cross their path, I just give a little greeting to them.

Back here, we have Critical,

and he has now got himself four females, quite quickly.

What breaks my heart is,

the young, skinny one on the edge is one of my favourites.

These two come and visit me quite regularly.

Now that she's with him,

she doesn't come and see me any more.

Calm is now the fourth female in Critical's harem,

and still has a lot to learn.

Mat has watched Critical grow up over the years,

and hopes that this year

he'll see Critical become a father

for the first time.

He'll have to keep a constant lookout for rival males,

who are always waiting for a chance

to kidnap one of his females.

A large male called Frodo

is already trying to move in on Critical's harem.

Critical has to fight him off,

and make sure his females stay close behind him for protection.

If they don't stick with him, they'll be stolen.

With order restored,

Critical and his family settle down for the night.

These cliff tops are a precious sanctuary for the baboons -

safe from prowling predators on the plains below.

For five years,

Mat and Teklu have emerged from their tents each dawn,

to prepare for another long, hot day in the desert.

But this year will be Mat's last.

He's decided it's time to move on,

even though life as a volunteer has its attractions.

My life is such a simple existence.

I drink and wash in these hot springs.

I'm far away from my friends and family.

And I've had no salary for the last five years.

It's a sacrifice, but it's worth it -

to be with these baboons is an experience that no money could buy.

Mat and Teklu spend every day,

from dawn to dusk,

following the baboons.

They're now fluent in the subtle signs and sounds of baboon language.

Hamadryas baboons

have a very animated face.

They have a whole wide range of expressions

to really let you know exactly what they're feeling.

They've got the eyebrow-raise,

which is your first warning that they're a little bit annoyed.

If you don't take that hint,

they'll lunge at you a bit.

An eyebrow-raise again,

so I'm getting frustrated here.

If that doesn't work, they start to...

HE MOUTHS

..grind their teeth.

If that doesn't work, you get these...

kind of look,

almost like, "I can't believe he's still there.

"Can't believe I have to keep threatening him."

There's always disbelief in them.

Then finally, if you still haven't got the message,

they charge at you, and come right up to you,

and really give you the full force of their power and their strength.

Believe me, it is intimidating.

The first fight of the day is brewing on the edge of the cliff.

Once again, Critical is defending his family from attack.

He's threatening another male, called Zaph,

who's trying to steal one of his wives.

THEY SQUEAL

The fight is over quickly.

Critical has come out on top,

whilst Zaph is left screaming in surrender.

Zaph's upset one of Critical's females.

They started threatening each other,

and Critical managed to grab Zaph in the mouth,

and he's torn his cheek a good centimetre.

There's a big hole there.

As soon as he got that hole, Zaph screamed in surrender,

this, "Ah! Don't hurt me any more".

No wonder he was screaming.

I can just feel that hole. Eurgh!

Critical has acquired females very quickly,

and I think it's cos he's prepared to fight.

And he's not the biggest baboon around.

But I guess it's not the size of the dog in the fight,

but the size of the fight in the dog. And he is a real fighter.

Critical has done his job, and kept his family safely together.

His next big step as a new leader male

is to produce his first offspring.

With the fighting over, the group is calm once gain,

and they slowly start to move off for the day.

REGGAE MUSIC

Mat and Teklu follow the group up to 20 miles a day,

as they forage for food and water on these harsh, arid plains.

Hamadryas are desert baboons.

To eke out a living here, they can't afford to be fussy feeders.

They'll eat plants, insects,

even small mammals.

Surviving in the desert is hard enough,

but the baboons face an even bigger threat to their daily existence.

The Afar people and their cattle.

THEY SCREECH

It's a bit hard on the poor baboons right now.

They really get pushed around by the livestock.

There's a herd of livestock here,

another down this side, and another coming up behind us.

So the baboons

are now trying to get out of their way.

If they're getting pushed, it means they miss out on water,

miss out on time to rest, and on the opportunity to feed.

It really can make for a difficult day for them.

The Afar shoot baboons if they stray too close to their livestock.

As a result,

the baboons are terrified of them.

The Afar have a violent reputation.

For them, guns are a way of life.

They're notorious for cutting off the testicles of their enemies,

and wearing them as trophies.

When we're following our baboons,

we constantly encounter people with guns.

They are everywhere here.

I constantly find I'm talking to someone,

and their gun is pointing at my face.

"Just push that aside a bit, please".

I've had guns pointed at me.

I've had someone try to club me in the head

with the butt of their Kalashnikov.

Afars are not easy people to have as neighbours.

We've had some very tense moments,

where you're just not sure how it's going to pan out.

It's unnerving - really quite scary.

When they see Mat, the Afar freely admit to killing baboons,

and make no bones about it.

The Afar are taught to kill baboons from an early age,

to help them improve their aim.

Can you tell them that the baboons

are for us what their cattle are to them.

They're very important to us,

so we'd really appreciate if they don't shoot...

HE SPEAKS AFAR

I can understand why they would defend their animals,

cos their animals are their whole bank balance, their way of life.

It's just this conflict of Afar

and park wildlife.

Sometimes there is problems when the two overlap.

The Afar are not just killing individual baboons,

they're also destroying their home.

Awash National Park is literally being grazed to dust

by the Afar's livestock.

Where these plains once teemed with wildlife,

now just a handful of animals remain.

Some species have crashed by 80%

in just ten years.

If the illegal grazing continues in Awash,

Mat's baboons, and the other wildlife, could disappear forever.

Something has to change.

Every evening, the baboons

return to the safety of the cliffs,

for a long grooming session before bed.

Critical's new female, Calm,

is carefully combing his mane.

But grooming is not just about getting clean,

it's an intimate family ritual

that bonds them closer together.

And Critical isn't the only one to get a grooming.

I've got someone grooming me on the back.

Teklu has been studying these baboons for ten years,

and has been fully accepted as one of the group.

Some juveniles, they're curious about my legs.

They start to approach me,

then they start grooming.

They're pulling my hair sometimes. It hurt!

Like all male baboons,

Critical keeps a close eye on his wives.

THEY SCREECH

Calm is still learning the ropes,

and has strayed too close to another male.

You recall the cat calls - "Ah! Ah!"

SHE BLEATS

She's being submissive to him now,

in the hope he doesn't bite her again.

CRITICAL GRUNTS

This grunting of his

is sort of saying, "I'm not going to hurt you."

She didn't do exactly what he wanted when he wanted,

so, "Bam!" - he gets her.

In the world of the Hamadryas,

females have a very tough time.

When it come to punishments, some males can be extremely brutal.

SHE SQUEALS

If you're ever reincarnated and come back to this world,

I wouldn't suggest coming back as a female Hamadryas.

Their life is pretty tough.

SHE SQUEALS

These females get very little say

in which males they're with.

It's the males who make that decision.

If they stray too far from the male, he punishes them.

You often see some females with bloody neck, torn ears.

Life's pretty rough for them.

The next morning, as Mat and Teklu arrive at the cliffs,

Critical, and several other males, are on the rampage.

THEY SQUEAL

That's a male frenzy going on.

All the males are showing their size and speed, just like this.

It's all about power,

and to demonstrate to the rest of the males how big and strong they are.

All the males are jumping in the tree,

giving it a good shake.

They work themselves up into this frenzy.

The females are just taking cover, they're squealing.

It really is impressive.

Hamadryas males love showing off.

To survive as a leader male, they have to make it clear

that they're not to be messed with.

Now again, calm just settles over the group.

Almost like nothing ever happened.

That's Ken, named after my father.

Good man, that one.

Good man.

Not all the males of the group are born leaders.

Some are naturally weaker, and for them,

Awash can be a particularly tough and unforgiving place to live.

If any members of the group fall ill,

they're simply left behind to die.

This morning, Mat has noticed that one of the baboons

is struggling to keep up with the rest of the band.

He's an eight-year-old male called Serious,

and he's clearly suffering.

We can see straightaway

that Serious, just in front of me,

has already fallen to the back of the group.

He's really struggling now to keep up with them.

He's limping there,

and you can see at the back end, he's really quite skinny -

he's lost a lot of condition.

There is something wrong with Serious' front right hand,

and he's developed a nasty cough.

SERIOUS COUGHS

Serious can no longer climb trees

to escape from predators,

and he can't reach the baboon's most important food -

the palm fruit which sustains them

for five months of the year.

Serious has to wait for scraps to rain down from above.

Serious would normally live for another ten years,

but Mat suspects he won't survive for long

in this harsh environment.

He does have this cyst or growth, or something, on his wrist.

And he has a hacking cough.

One of the dilemmas I face as a wildlife biologist

is whether to interfere or not.

Potentially, we might be able to help him and save his life,

but the other side of the coin is our position here

is to observe and see what happens.

While for me personally, it's actually quite sad

if Serious does die, cos I've known him for many years,

I guess the harsh reality is

his death may mean life for other animals.

For jackals, for hyena, for vultures.

It's the way things are here.

SERIOUS COUGHS

The dry season is approaching, and Mat has nine months left.

The baboons are on their way to find water.

Even for these desert specialists,

the mid-day sun is fierce,

and the baboons have to retreat to the shade.

At this time of the day, the baboons just like to hang out in the shade,

and just rest, cos it's just too hot for them.

Unfortunately, the baboons have stolen the best shady spots.

but I'll see if I can sneak in on the side without disturbing them.

I'm envious of these young ones' energy.

Almost any time of the day,

they'll play.

They chase each other around like tag, and play hide and seek.

Anywhere, any place, there's always something they can play on -

whether it's a termite hill, in the dust, in the mud...

REGGAE MUSIC

Though it may look like pure fun,

there is a point to all this activity.

In the rough and tumble of playtime,

young baboons learn the fighting skills they'll need as adults.

Today's king of the castle will be tomorrow's top male.

Critical is clearly performing well

in his new role as head of the family.

His oldest female, Gunsch, is now pregnant,

and his youngest female, Calm,

Mat's favourite, is on heat and could soon be joining her.

This is Critical coming in here now, with his four females.

You can see the one closest to him

is getting this swelling, so she's on heat.

It's her oestrous cycle.

She has to stay close to him.

If she strays, he attacks her.

Because he doesn't want

any other males reproducing with her right now.

You can see that female to his right - the biggest one -

that intense red colour indicates pregnancy.

So, probably within the next few months,

we'll see Critical have his first baby.

It's the start of his family.

Mat has been working on the baboons project for free

for five years.

Now, aged 35, he wants to start his own family,

and needs to find a job that pays.

But he wants to leave

knowing the future is safe for his beloved baboons.

In just a matter months, I'll be leaving this place,

leaving these baboons.

So, my goal for this year

is to do whatever I can to ensure that they do have a future.

I think this is going to entail me

really sitting down and discussing with the community here - the Afar,

to try and come up with a solution

that will allow both the baboons and the Afar

to co-exist.

Mat and Teklu have come to the Afar village of Wasaro

to visit the chief.

Mat has the daunting task

of trying to change the way the Afar see baboons.

To them, the baboons are simply pests that need shooting,

and are no good to anyone.

The chat plant is a natural narcotic that's sacred to the Afar.

Chewing chat together

is a social ritual that dates back thousands of years.

Only after all the necessary customs have been observed

can the meeting formally begin.

Baboons in Awash... You don't find them in many places around the world,

so it's quite special.

We're interested in learning more about them.

The Afar were here long before the national park was created.

They were cleared by force from their lands,

and have nowhere else to go.

Their ancient way of life is all they know.

The Afar believe the baboons were once people

who were punished by God and banished to the wilderness.

They're seen as outcasts.

It won't be easy to stop the Afar from killing baboons,

but Mat can't just walk away - he has to try and make peace.

There is a direct conflict between our baboons and the Afar.

The baboons don't have a voice, they don't have guns.

It hasn't been an easy relationship I've had with the Afar.

I do want to improve, but more so

I want the baboons' relationship with the Afar to improve,

so the baboons are safe and do have a future here.

This is a conflict that's being played out

in almost all the national parks across East Africa.

Both the wildlife and the people have a right to be here.

The baboons have lived on these cliffs for thousands of years,

but if the destruction of the national park continues unabated,

their home will be destroyed,

and there will be nowhere left for them to live.

The dry season has begun in earnest.

Within a few hours, temperatures will climb to over 40 degrees.

At this time of year, the weak and the infirm

struggle to survive.

Serious, the sick eight-year-old male,

is in grave danger.

SERIOUS COUGHS

He's been left behind by the rest of the band,

and is all alone on the cliffs.

Hamadryas baboons stick together for safety.

Serious is now highly vulnerable to attack

from leopards and hyenas.

Without the protection of the group,

Serious is unlikely to survive another night.

SERIOUS COUGHS

Mat knows he may never see Serious again.

Mat and Teklu have walked an hour from camp

to find the rest of the band,

who've spent the night on a different cliff.

When they find the baboons,

Mat notices that Beth

has a brand-new infant.

When they're first delivered, new babies are covered in black fur,

and a source of great excitement to all the females.

But this infant is not moving.

It's suspected murdered.

We just got here this morning,

and it looks like Beth's black infant is dead.

I can't see any sign of injury on him.

Frodo recently stole Beth from another male.

It looks like he's just killed Beth's infant.

Infanticide is really common in these situations.

Males kill the infants so that the new wife

will give birth much sooner to their own infant.

It's a really sad thing to see.

As the band moves off for the day, Beth struggles to keep up.

Normally, even a brand-new infant would naturally grip

onto its mother from below as she travels.

Sometimes they will ride on top of her back.

But Beth has to carry the full weight of her dead baby,

and it's slowing her down.

For days on end, Beth refuses to abandon her baby.

For her it's very difficult.

She has to take care of her infant the whole day.

She never let go for five or six days.

Even when she sleeps, she never lets go.

The whole night she will be screaming. She feels very sad.

Me too, I get sad. Can't do anything.

It's now seven months until Mat leaves.

He's got a plan for the next step in building bridges with the Afar.

Having asked the chief at his meeting what he could do to help,

Mat has raised funds to buy a new solar-powered light

for the village mosque.

The Afar are Muslim, and for them,

prayer is an incredibly important part of their life,

so one of the things they've asked us to do is to provide solar lighting,

so that the children can learn the Koran during the night time.

So this is, for us, a really positive way that we can help the community,

and it's a good way to strengthen our relationship with the Afar.

It's a small step, but gives Mat a little more hope.

As the dry season peaks, the temperature moves up to 45 degrees.

Everyone is feeling the pressure, especially the baboons.

Today, the group is in a strange and hostile mood.

BABOON SHRIEKS

He wasn't really threatening me there,

but he was indicating to the others that he was upset,

and this is a call for the others to come and help me,

but he wasn't really giving me the eyebrow raise and everything.

It was just a, "This guy's a threat! Come here!"

They're really stirred up at present.

You can hear them.

Something is in the air.

The baboons are restless and feeling threatened,

and when they arrive back at their sleeping cliffs, Mat discovers why.

Now the baboons have arrived at their cliff,

they've found that another band has actually moved in and occupied it.

With the two bands together,

there are over 500 baboons trying to squeeze onto the cliffs.

The tension is rising, and they're about to go to war.

Oh, here we go. It's kicking off.

They both want to share the same cliff.

The chaos of battle presents a perfect opportunity to steal

females from the other band.

The two different bands are running a couple of metres apart,

and you see individuals charging in, trying to disperse them.

But the noise, the noise is so loud!

BABOONS SHRIEK

You have these moments of quietness when everything just settles,

and then it can just build up again.

It only needs someone to charge, and suddenly they're back at each other.

It's females screaming, so they squeal to bring up their male,

and it's working.

She's going to start a war here.

Over here it's building up again.

Listen to that noise.

BABOONS SHRIEK

As Mat moves closer to the centre of the action,

he can barely make himself heard above the roar of baboons.

This is the front line just here.

The noise is massive, and they're pushing them away. Wow!

There is now 500 or 600 baboons here, all back and forth.

They're trying to scoop them up,

and also have a cliff to sleep on tonight.

I suspect this is going to be a really wild night.

The two groups fight on into the darkness.

Mat leaves his baboons, not knowing what may happen overnight.

The next morning, Mat and Teklu return to the cliffs

to assess the damage to the group in the aftermath of battle.

You can see, they're still a bit nervous.

Still giving me a bit of space.

I've been doing a roll call of our baboons this morning

since that big fight, just to see if they've lost any females

or actually gained any, and there doesn't appear to be any change.

I think Critical has managed to keep all of his females.

It's not an easy feat, to hang onto all those females

when all this chaos is happening around him, so he's done really well.

But in his valiant efforts to keep his family safely together,

Critical has been injured.

It looks like Critical's front tooth is very loose.

It looks like it's causing him discomfort,

because he's constantly licking it.

Oh!

Somebody call a dentist.

It will be interesting, now, to see just how it affects his behaviour,

because he wouldn't want to be fighting while he's got this problem.

It sends shivers down my spine to see his tooth flopping about.

It seems that this is one battle he didn't win.

He's now got himself an injury.

Critical is not the only casualty.

A young infant has received a severe bite on the arm.

That injury is like having a shark bite. There's really a chunk missing.

Normally, they tear each other, rip each other,

but not tear chunks of flesh.

That's as bad as I've ever seen.

I don't think this guy's going to last, unfortunately.

With that arm completely out of action,

he's going to struggle to survive.

Critical's injury makes him vulnerable,

and the other males waste no time in trying to take advantage.

Sensing his weakness, a gang of three males are trying

to steal his females, but Critical is not backing down.

There goes Critical. He's chasing them.

Critical against three males, there, and able to keep them all at bay.

He's played his hand very well here.

The baboons must now travel further and further each day

to find food and water.

The searing desert heat is taking its toll.

At this time of year, the Afar and their cattle are starving.

Every night, after bringing in their livestock,

the men gather together to pray to God to bring them rain.

For the Afar, the drought is the hardest time of the year.

It's a time of death and hunger.

Their only hope is for God to bring rain to end the suffering.

The next day, the sun is as hot as ever,

and the baboons are on the move early.

As usual, they head straight for the palm fruits, their favourite food.

Critical has now lost his wobbly tooth,

and he's finding it hard to break through the fruit's tough shell.

The Hamadryas baboons in this part of Ethiopia

are amongst the biggest in the world,

and the key reason for this is the palm fruit.

The palm fruit here is able to sustain the baboons for up to

four to five months per year.

It's a food that both the Afar and the baboons like.

The palm trees of Awash are essential to the baboons' survival.

Without them, they would not be here.

But the palms are being systematically cut down by the Afar,

who sell them for cash during the dry season when times are hard.

Every palm that's taken is one less fruit tree for the baboons.

Their most important food supply is rapidly dwindling.

Is there as much palm today as there was when he was a small boy?

It's actually well worth just chatting to those guys to hear

about this problem, how they can't support themselves any more

with just livestock alone, and they're now turning to the palm,

even though they recognise that the palm population is decreasing.

As the baboons return to the cliffs, once again,

they're all on edge.

Two hyenas are prowling at the bottom of the cliffs,

and Critical and the rest of the group are alarm-barking.

By alerting each other to the presence of predators,

the baboons have successfully driven off the hyenas.

But as one threat goes away, another rears its head.

The Afar have been at the baboons' precious sleeping spot,

cutting down palm leaves.

This is unbelievable.

Just here, on top of the cliff where our baboons sleep,

the Afar have been busy cutting the palm leaf.

If it's overdone, it just kills the tree.

And this is really bad news for the baboons.

If we lose these trees, that will decimate this whole group.

I have such an emotional attachment to these animals,

I would hate to see anything happening to them.

This is so disappointing.

Sometimes I think, "Why am I here?"

Five years without a salary, five years of struggling,

very difficult conditions, and at the end of it,

am I going to have anything to show

for the conservation work I've done here?

It's very good right now just to be amongst the baboons, because

they really do take my mind off some of the difficulties I sometimes face.

This is a gift that they don't even know they give me.

The Afar's prayers have been answered.

Finally, the rainy season has arrived.

Baboons hate the rain.

These once-majestic males look truly miserable.

They're in no rush to move off for the day,

and are staying put in their sleeping spot.

At least they can have a drink without having to travel.

It's funny watching the baboons in the rain.

It's almost like they're a wet dog.

They just pull their head in and curl up into a ball,

and the youngsters tend to cuddle up amongst their mother or the father.

At long last, the pressure of the dry season has been released.

Once the storm has passed, the baboons dry out

and then venture into a whole new world.

The sparse desert is transformed overnight into a land of plenty.

The wet season shows Awash in its greatest glory.

It's a unique place, home to some very special animals.

This is Mat's favourite time of year.

With so much grass around, the Afar don't need to graze their cattle

in the park, and don't harass the baboons.

It's a time of peace and abundance for all.

Since the wet season, this whole area is completely transformed.

Before it was just dust,

and now the baboons are just moving through this sea of grass.

There's food everywhere for them.

So for the baboons, this is the best time of the year.

Mat's time in Awash will soon be over.

He knows that if the baboons and their home are to have a future,

he has to persuade the Afar to see them differently.

These baboons are a valuable asset to this region, to the people,

attracting researchers, attracting tourists.

We really need to show the community just how valuable these baboons are.

Mat has worked hard all year to make friends with the Afar,

and he's starting to earn their trust.

Now he wants to show them a way of living with baboons

that could actually be of benefit to them.

With time running out, Mat has come up with a plan.

He and Teklu are heading off on a road trip.

In the back are three Afars from the local village.

The two Alis, and Muhammad in the middle.

They're travelling 240 miles north to the highlands of Ethiopia,

to the Guassa grasslands,

home to another type of monkey called the Gelada.

Gelada are a really special primate

found only in the Ethiopian highlands.

What I want these guys to see is how the community

is benefiting from conserving these primates.

The area where we're going is well over 3,000 metres above sea level.

It's an absolutely beautiful landscape, but very cold.

For these guys, they've never been to the highlands,

so it's completely new for them.

Finally, after nine hours' driving, they arrive at the lodge

owned and run by the local community.

After warming up and borrowing boots and waterproofs,

the Afar are ready to go and see the Gelada.

Gelada are totally unique to Ethiopia,

and with their long, woolly coats,

they're perfectly adapted to life on this cold, wet plateau.

It's such a different environment, a different situation to Awash,

and yet these animals kind of look similar,

but in a completely different context.

They call these the Bleeding Heart Gelada,

because of this red patch they've got on their chest, there.

They're superb animals, they really are.

Not as good as Hamadryas, but still good.

For the Afar, it's unusual to get this close to wild animals,

as they normally scare them off.

Do you think you'd like to move up here and study these guys instead?

No, I'd like to move these guys over there.

I think I might have a few new field assistants to help me study the Hamadryas.

These guys are really getting into it.

They're absolutely fascinated by these Gelada.

The grasslands have been carefully protected

by the community for over 400 years.

They use the grasses for thatching their roofs,

and have strict limits on grazing

to ensure the survival of this precious resource.

The people here have found a way of living on their land

without destroying it.

And they're happy to share it with the Gelada,

as they bring in visitors and extra income.

After a long day following the Gelada up and down steep slopes,

the lowland visitors are exhausted, but Mat's plan

to open their eyes to a new way of looking at wildlife

seems to have worked.

My hope is now that when they go back to their villages,

they can really sit down and discuss with their other community members

and tell them about their experience here, and what they've learned,

and hopefully we might see a bit of an attitude change

in the Afar towards the Hamadryas. That's the big goal here.

I think we've taken a step towards it.

The time has come for Mat to leave his baboons.

He's come for one last visit. A chance to reflect on their future.

It's a future intertwined with that of the Afar people.

But can they change their ancient way of life

and stop destroying the baboon's home?

It's not an easy process just to make them

switch from one thing to another.

This takes a long time,

and we're talking maybe decades for this change to happen.

The question here is will this land survive decades? I don't know.

I don't think there's that much time left now.

I think we're really at a critical point

where something needs to change, and change soon.

Mat is doing a final check on his favourite individuals

before saying his goodbyes,

and there's a little surprise waiting for him.

The infant with the badly injured arm is now thriving.

What's really promising is the infant is actually looking quite healthy

despite his really severe injury.

I think he's going to be OK. I have a good feeling about this one.

And Critical has become a father.

His oldest female, Gunsch, has a new infant,

and she's keeping a tight hold of him

as he tries to explore his world.

And just last night, his youngest wife, Calm - Mat's old favourite -

gave birth to a baby girl, and she's attracting

a great deal of attention from the other admiring females.

His family just continues to grow.

This is really positive news for Calm, the new mother.

This is a whole new experience for her. She's never had a baby before.

The early sign seems like

she's taking really good care of the infant.

I don't think Critical's going to get Father of the Year.

Some of the males are very tolerant with their black infants.

They allow them to climb all over them.

I really just don't think Critical's that kind of guy.

The most important thing he can do is just to take care of the mothers

and defend their babies, and if he does that, then he's done his job.

In his five years here, Mat has made a difference.

Thanks to him and Teklu,

the Afar are starting to see the animals around them differently.

Keep in touch.

It's a small seed of change, but if it grows,

then there's real hope for the baboons and their desert home.

To say goodbye to these baboons, I think that's the hardest part.

For me, they have been the highlight of this place.

To share in their life, to almost be accepted by them

as one of their group, their social order,

it's going to be really sad to leave these guys.

My one big hope is that both the baboons and the Afar

can peacefully coexist

and that this magnificent place could have a really good future.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd