What’s In A Glass Of Predator Friendly Wine?
Creation Wines Become A Predator Friendly Farm
Us as a society are more concious now than ever before about where our food and wine comes from and what methods were used to get it to our table. Many food and beverage companies are geared toward change, with the back of packaging highlighting that it’s 100% organic, badger friendly, tuna friendly, no GMO and so on, but what about our wine and meat?
Meat is a tricky subject amongst most suppliers in that there is a heavy focus on hormone fed animals and the manner in which the animal was raised, but what about the other environmental factors such as the methods used to protect livestock?
Predator friendly wine may sound strange but due to the fact that wine estates have far reaches into uncharted terrain and against mountain slopes there is concern about the protection of predators such as leopards who are often destroyed due to fear, lack of education and predation of livestock.
Enter the Landmark Foundation, geared towards building the conservation economy. The foundation facilitates a number of projects but the most important one in our area is species conservation regarding the Cape leopard.
Though lovely to hear that they are patrolling our mountains here in the Overberg, their numbers are dwindling due to a number of reasons:
- Trapping
- Failure to create new territories due to hunting and not being able to cross into new areas.
- In breeding – failure to cross into new areas due to roads, housing and towns means they end up inter breeding with leopards in their own area.
We are however able to fix those reasons and restore hope and faith that the number of leopards in the area stay protected and have a chance of breeding successfully with other leopards in outer lying regions like the Swartberg and De Hoop areas.
How does it all work?
Many farmers use horrendous methods to protect their livestock, from shooting to laying traps, one farm was rid of over 200 gin traps alone. (A gin trap is a steel trap with teeth, once the mechanism is triggered it slams shut over an animals paw, leaving them immobile and trapped.)
Landmark Foundation educates farmers about methods that they can use to prevent their livestock from being killed and to take pride in the fact that their land is being used by such beautiful creatures like the leopard.
By educating them about the right measures of control in a none lethal manner, such as livestock guarding dogs, making use of alpacas, shepherds, protection collars, bell collars and fencing the hope of restoring the local leopard population can become attainable.
No single method will be 100 % effective on its own. They work best when applied in combination. Occasional losses will still occur but nothing like the widespread losses experienced while using lethal controls. Lethal measure like the traps have proven to destroy more animals and livestock other than the predator that the farmer is hoping to catch.
What about the wine?
Following the recent confirmed sighting of a male leopard just 500 m from Creation’s Tasting Room by a motion sensitive night-vision camera, and Landmark Foundation ranger Bruce Missing searching the area for a female with a cub, they now have the wine estates full support and are proud to announce that they are a predator friendly farm.
Creation will work hand in hand with the Landmark Foundation in encouraging and educating surrounding farms to take note of the plight of the leopards in the Overberg and to switch to more holistic methods.
Rescues and research are focussed in the Western and Eastern Cape of South Africa. GPS collars serve two main functions – protection and conservation. The Landmark Foundation have rescued 42 cats and GPS collared 22 since 2004.
Source: Creation Wines, Jeannine McManus, Landmark Foundation
Hopefully all the farms in the Hemel en Aarde Valley will become predator friendly soon!
More info on the town of Hermanus |