Since March 2025, Nature’s Valley Baboon Project has been providing the Nature’s Valley, South Africa, residents with a monthly “Baboon Bulletin” via the NGO NVT‘s social media. This requested community-facing report includes monthly information on (1) where our research team saw the baboons outside of residential areas, providing residents with a more complete picture of …
For June – August 2026, three University of Wisconsin-Madison students, primate nutrition lab members Sophia Mummert (PhD student), Griffyn Jones (undergraduate student who received the Hilldale Undergraduate/Faculty Research Fellowship) and Luis Vazquez Chavez (undergraduate student), are in Nature’s Valley, South Africa to complete independent research projects as part of the Nature’s Valley Baboon Project and …
Two UW-Madison undergraduates who first worked on data entry and organization in our research group and then spent summer 2025 in Nature’s Valley, South Africa, published articles in the local South African journal Nature’s Letters! Check out “Grooming equitability in female chacma baboons (Papio ursinus) following group fusion in Nature’s Valley, South Africa” led by UW-Madison …
We have a new paper out in the American Journal of Primatology! “Fungal diversity and potential health benefits of mycophagy in chacma baboons (Papio ursinus)” is open access and can be found here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajp.70146 We identified 10 species of fungi consumed by chacma baboons in Nature’s Valley, South Africa, and discussed the potential health implications …
University of Wisconsin-Madison senior and Wildlife Ecology and Anthropology double major Isabelle Anderson presented a poster at the UW Undergraduate Symposium in April 2026 on her summer 2025 field project in South Africa and Wildlife Ecology Capstone! She examined the extent of indigenous versus non-indigenous plant foods in the baboon diet in Nature’s Valley, South …
Undergraduate students Isabelle Anderson (UW-Madison) and Gabrielle Mostow (Harvard University) presented posters at the Midwest Primate Interest Group meeting in Chicago in September 2025! Both students spent their summer in Nature’s Valley, South Africa, studying wild chacma baboons as part of the Nature’s Valley Baboon Project (NVBP). Isabelle’s project examined the contribution of indigenous versus …
In July 2025, the Nature’s Valley Baboon Project, co-directed by Dr. Margaret Bryer, Dr. Kris Sabbi and Dr. Hendri Coetzee, presented at the 30th Congress of the International Primatological Society in Antananarivo, Madagascar! Multiple members of the baboon team presented two posters and discussed with researchers from around the world Nature’s Valley baboon ranging patterns …
Co-directors Drs. Kris Sabbi and Margaret Bryer brought four undergraduates from the US to work with our third co-director Dr. Hendri Coetzee and our research team on the ground, Carla van Hasselt and Nicolas Marais, to learn behavioral data collection and conduct independent projects. Student projects included looking at baboon activity budgets before and after …