Successes

Some successes Riverside achieved in the last few years include the following:

* Through continuous communication and appeals to all nine Provinces to change the status of the classified 5 vermin wild animal species, we achieved success with Mpumalanga Province changing the listing of the vervet monkey and baboon to ordinary wild animals. The remaining Provinces are in the process of tabling their respective Provincial Laws doing away with the term Vermin or Problem animal species.

* Realising that it can take years to pass the above legislation we appealed to the Minister of Environmental Affairs to have a better conservation policy for CITES listed animals, which at present covers the vervet monkey, baboon and caracal.

* Though many Conservation Authorities and academics believe it impossible to rehabilitate humanised primates, we have successfully rehabilitated and released a number of troops of vervet monkeys and after two -three years and longer they are still coping and sustaining themselves in the wild.

* Due to SA becoming a signatory to the 1992 Convention on Biodiversity, Provincial Conservation Authorities were afraid of possible genetic pollution during rehabilitation and release back into the wild of vervet monkeys. We are the only known centre where a project was undertaken in conjunction with University of Limpopo's  Zoology department, and that was to determine the DNA differences, if any, existed between vervet monkeys from the various provinces in SA.