According to Mark Dendy-Young, owner of La Petite Ferme, his vineyards have lost 40% of the annual crop and as much as two to three tonnes a week, enough to make 2,000 bottles of wine.

Male Chacma Baboon

The troop of about fifty marauding baboons have been driven closer to farm lands in search of food because recent bushfires have driven them down from the mountains surrounding the Cape’s wine district, Franschhoek. Dendy-Young told Decanter.com that the animals know just when the fruit is about reach optimal ripeness and scavange the vines just before they are harvested.

Also affected are the Moreson Pinot Noir vineyards which are situated on high slopes.

These primates are agressive, invasive animals and thrive in the Cape Town mountains where they seemingly have few, if any natural predators to control their numbers.

An ongoing problem is that people feed them in spite of many warnings and the baboons associate a human being with food. This results in cars at sight-seeing stops and picnic areas being trashed. Many homes in areas bordering on the mountain reserves have been ransacked and people have been attacked while the baboons attempt to snatch away food.