June 2007 – Nathan's Passing.
Nathan must have been the oldest of the research baboons that we took on, God, I think it must have been eleven years ago.
From the beginning he always was my special boy. Such distinct features, a very pronounced chin, very dignified and calm. Considering that vivisection labs only work with fully grown baboons and his life at the labs ,according to them, was 13 years, he must have been 7+13 +11 = approx 31years old. Older than my very first baboon, Old Bobby. He occupied the middle part of our Sanctuary Village, together with Rhona, Sybil and Gwinnie, his three old ladies. But his special love had always been Saba who died recently. I could not let Saba join the group since the three old witches with him were hell bent on a real fight with her. So Nathan spent hours leaning against the fence that separated the two and Saba devotedly groomed him for hours on end. Even at night I saw them huddling together through the fence, thus sleeping on the ground. But then Nathan was a bright boy and had worked out that his enclosure was safe from any predators. The best feature in his home is a viewing platform with a thatched roof., very high ,from where he could look far into the lowveld across the Olifants river. He loved spending time there, but lately I noticed he took some time climbing the long ladder to get to his favourite place. Being a very old lady myself I once decided to try that ladder to check how difficult it was.( I also would have liked to enjoy the view.) So one day, when nobody was around to watch me, I started up the ladder. Well ,I got a good fright because not even halfway up I decided that it was high time to retreat to the ground, my times of climbing trees or other adventures was definitely over. My respect for Nathan grew – the old boy just did not give up ! I decided that it must be the daily two eggs, spiked with multivitamins and Moducare which we gave him for some years now, that kept him so fit.
In the meantime I was convinced that Nathan could not possibly have had any teeth left, at least that is what it looked like, and for along time now we did cut the food for the "oldies" into very small pieces and made sure that they got as much "soft food" as possible. The resident vervet troop was delighted. Being so small, they always found a way into Nathan's kingdom and raided the food where they could. When Bennett came rushing in one morning to tell me that Nathan was foaming badly from the mouth and could not breath properly, my first thought was that he might possible have chocked on a small piece of food. What I saw made me think differently, but it was serious. I was reluctant to dart him because of his breathing problem and immediately phone the vet for assistance. Lizanne, our devoted baboon vet was here within an hour. We darted Nathan but found no obstruction whatsoever. I was right, he only had four teeth left and there were a few small pieces of apple and carrots in his pouches. He was examined thoroughly and the verdict was – very severe pneumonia. Well, many old humans die from it. We made him comfortable in the sickbay and I cried, having to put him back into one of these hated lab cages which stole 13 of his good years of life from him. Nathan must have felt the same and betrayed. When I tried to hand him small pieces of bananas after he woke up, he severely scratched my arm and turned his back on me. In spite of all the medication he did not get better and after two days and constant nerve-racking moaning from him, I knew that he must be in terrible pain and decided to take him back to the vet. Lizanne also thought that he should have responded to the antibiotics by then and feared that there was more than just the pneumonia to worry about. It is a terrible decision to make about the life or death of any creature. But when I saw his suffering and thought what I would have wanted in his position, I knew the answer. It was simply not fair to subject him to so much suffering to possibly having him spend a long time in the hated lab cage. He was such an old man and his special friend had gone. So we decided to let him go to her.
The autopsy revealed that we were so right. Not only did he have this massive pneumonia and bad old scars on his lungs, his abdomen looked terrible. I am not an expert but it looked to me that he had the most violent infection spreading through the whole abdomen, something I would imagine the worst appendicitis could look like. And this caused the terrible pain he showed. Never ever could this have healed again.
For me personally, the saddest moment was, seeing him lying in the metal cradle on his back and Lizanne starting to shave his chest. She paused, almost shocked and looked at me –right across his chest appeared a tattooed Number - 756. Yes, he was in Baboon-Auschwitz and after all these years here it stared at us again…..756 REMEMBER MY SUFFERING.
Rita Miljo
Director
Centre for Animal Rehabilitation & Education (CARE)
The Baboon Buddy Project and the story of the baboons that were resued from the NCOH.
Click HERE.
