What Australian biologist Mat Pines learned while living with baboons

FOR five years this man's been sleeping in the wild, waking at 4am and following hundreds of baboons on foot for up to 35km. Here's what he learned about them - and himself.

FOR five years this man's been sleeping in the wild, waking at 4am and following hundreds of baboons on foot for up to 35km. He says it's been 'like watching a soapie'.

Australian biologist Mat Pines has spent years captivated from his front row seat to what most of us won't even see on TV.

Having never been to Africa, Mat - working at the University of Queensland at the time - applied on a whim after seeing an online ad for a volunteer to work with primates in the Awash National Park in the wilds of Ethiopia.

"It wasn't specifically what I was after but I thought I would enjoy it," he told news.com.au from Ethiopia.

"I was only supposed to come for a year. One year became two, then three, and I ended up staying for five years."

The 38-year-old spent it living in a tent in the middle of nowhere studying a troupe of about 200 Hamadryas baboons.

Female & juvenile Hamadryas Baboons grooming. Picture: John Brown.

His daily routine depended on where the baboons bunkered down at the end of each day.

"If we were unlucky they may have slept an hour's walk from us so we'd get up at 4am, quickly get dressed, then walk for an hour to the baboons and try to find them by sunrise," he said.

"Then we'd follow them until 4pm or 5pm so that we could get back to camp before dark, have a shower, set up camp and then do it all again.

"Sometimes we'd walk up to 35km a day and it was quite hot so we'd try to travel fairly light. I'd restrict myself to 3 litres of water a day and take some packed food, my cameras, equipment and notebooks."

Mat, from Narrabri in New South Wales, lived in a tent alongside two Ethiopian field scouts, at least an hour's drive from any towns. Their existence was basic.

"We were in a very remote area. It was a very rough, harsh, arid environment," he said.

"We set up solar panels to get a bit of lighting and charge a few electrical devices but that's it. There was no refrigeration.

"We'd drive to the nearest market every two weeks to buy supplies. We'd wash in water from a well and get our drinking water from hot springs."

Australian Biologist Mat Pines, who has lived in the wilds of Ethiopia studying a troop of baboons in the Awash National Park, with field assistant Teklu. Picture: Chadden Hunter.

Throughout his time as the manager and researcher for the American-founded The Filoha Hamadryas Project, the violent and dangerous baboons both embraced and terrorised him.

"We had these animals' trust to an extent, which was nice because they have very big and sharp canines. They never actually attacked us although they would threaten us a lot," he said.

"They'd often blindside you. You wouldn't see them until the last moment when they were only a metre away from you and you'd have this 25kg animal hurling itself at you then just stopping short and it's incredibly intimidating.

"We had to show no fear. Your natural instinct is to run away but my strategy was to stand my ground and focus on my binoculars and pretend I didn't see them. Eventually they'd lose interest and back off. But it's a test of your nerves."

Male Hamadryas Baboon in threatening mode. Picture: John Brown.

The baboons treated the researchers with both curiosity and caution, sometimes even seeming to adopt them into their troupe.

"We're among them because we need to be close to them to be able to observe them and collect data on their behaviour. We're literally sitting among them and they would walk right past us at times and sometimes they actually came and touched us but that was something we tried to avoid because we didn't want to habituate them to an extreme level. We wanted them to behave naturally and we didn't want them to be interested us," he said.

"They seemed to accept our presence but even still we had situations where we might accidentally walk between a mother and her baby and she would scream and then her male would come charging right up to us and threaten us so we had to be very careful.

"Some of the female youngsters would come up and present to us … present their rear end, their genitalia to us, as an invitation. The males were more stand-offish but they would keep an eye on us to make sure we weren't threatening them or their families.

"There was a nice little truce there. They weren't sure what we were capable of although we were fairly sure what we were capable of."

Male Hamadryas Baboon. Picture: Mat Pines.

His closeness has given astounding new insights into their behaviour and group psyche. He witnessed hundreds of males pitched in bloody battles over females.

"A male essentially possesses up to 12 females and they stay with him until he's too old or weak to defend them and then someone steals them from him. So he monopolises reproduction with those females but sometimes the females would be interested in someone else," he said.

"That kind of scenario, where she's trying to get with another male, I saw about once a month.

"(Punishment of the female) tends to be very rough. They tend to bite them around the back of the neck and the back of the head. You see females with torn ears and heavy scarring. Some males will just grab the female and threaten them while other males will be more violent if they tend to be more uncertain about things."

Mat says he learnt to accept the violence he saw.

"But I do have favourites so you find yourself kind of rooting for them and hoping for the best outcome but there's nothing we can do. They'd tear us to pieces if we got involved. You do have to let nature take its course," he said.

"It's a tough decision but you have to stand back and let it unfold. You do see them sustain injuries and you're wincing because you can imagine how it feels but that's the nature of them. You can't help in those scenarios"

Family of Hamadryas Baboons. Picture: John Brown.

Even if the scenarios did seem so human-like.

"There are a lot of personalities. It was almost like watching a soapie. You'd see all these different relationships. You'd see a young male who wants to get females and the strategy he employs to try to acquire females," he said.

"There are other similarities there especially when you see one with the hiccups, vomit or have a coughing fit they display he same facial expressions that we do and you think 'I know exactly what you're going through'.

"When females have a baby all of the females in the broader group will come and look at it. Males are often tolerant of the babies and let the babies crawl over them. I wouldn't say they're loving towards the baby but they're protective."

Australian Biologist Mat Pines has lived in the wilds of Ethiopia, studying a troop of baboons in the Awash National Park. Picture: Rea Tschopp.

Now a new dad himself, Mat sees similarities between the baboons and his two adopted babies.

"It's really such a raw, harsh environment and we've had front row seats to things you wouldn't normally see and that's what was driving me to do this," he said.

"About once a month you'd see moments like this and then you'd go back to camp and think this is why I'm here, for these moments."

Mat is now based in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa - with his veterinarian partner Rea Tschopp, their 22-month-old daughter Beza and their nine-month-old son Asteway - where he does conservation consultancy work and teaches biology and conservation part time.

See more of Mat's story in Sir David Attenborough's Living With Baboons at 6pm on Sunday, November 24 on TEN.

Continue the conversation via Twitter @newscomauHQ | @itsKShort | @channelten | @Sir_Attenboroug

Hamadryas infant hanging upside down from tree. Picture: John Brown.

###