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Home > Blogs > Uncorked > Archives > 2010 > March > 16 > Entry
Grape-eating baboons ravage S. African vineyards
Packs of baboons are stripping wine grapes from their vines in South Africa, according to this Breitbart.com article that quotes one vineyard manager who has lost 40 percent of his crop.
As loyal reader ChiefWino noted when he forwarded this link, “And California thinks med flies, grape moths and phylloxera are bad … “
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Comments
By Ron
March 20, 2010 10:45 AM | Link to this
Former South African resident (my sister) on the baboons… “the ‘big boys.’ They are nothing to mess with. They’re huge. Often when you would drive north of that area into the Tulbagh region, a band would be loping along the crests. Great when you see them from afar, but they are easily the same height as a football player when they rise up and can tear apart anything animate when it suits them. Normally, they are of no real threat, but if they are coming as far south as the Franschoek Valley to raid, then their habitats are being disturbed elsewhere. They tend to be very territorial. The area baboons around the Cape, including the ones we virtually daily had passing in and out of our yard/garden, were smaller and less aggressive. You learned how to deal with them. I really feel for the farmers as those bands cause misery and they have memories. They retaliate and it isn’t pretty when they do so. So many changes in a formerly superb country…”
By Nancy Bentley
March 16, 2010 12:18 PM | Link to this
Some South African growers plant table grapes on the ends of the rows, hoping the baboons will snatch those and leave. Guess it’s not working. We have our own battles, deer, raccoons, possums, rabbits, birds, Asian lady beetles, wild turkeys!
By shoot the apes
March 16, 2010 11:59 AM | Link to this
Shoot the damn things. Or get a pack of Rhodesian Ridge backs to chase the things away.