Cederberg Field Excursion

Day one travel northward, early morning stop at wheat farm in the Swartland. Talk to farmer about wheat farming post apartheid. Learned about changes in wheat farming practices from deep yearly ripping using a mold broad plow which caused soil loss and used lots of fuel to adoption of minimum till practices, contour bunds, contour plowing, less frequent and much shallower plowing. Learned about the appearance of herbicide resistant rye grass in the fields. Farmers haven’t yet solved the rye grass problem, spraying doesn’t help, tried reverting to the mold broad plow to no avail. Currently using canola in a crop rotation to help clean out the rye grass, but canola is an imperfect cleaner. Globally low wheat prices have been tough for wheat farming in the Swartland, very small margins for production. In the past five years which have been poor rain years, this particular farmer and others in the Swartland have not turned a profit. As a result he has started raising more sheep and cattle because the meat prices are more stable and there is a much lower capital investment, he has a guaranteed return on his investment in livestock. He hopes that china continues to import more food, particularly wheat and will eventually drive up the wheat price to levels that are at least mildly profitable for him.

After the wheat we went further up the road to a fossil park. Not a fossilized park, but a park with fossils in it, rather a ticket office and a shade canopy over and open dig. Most of the fossils were from a now extinct three toed horse. There were also some seals. They think a big flood caught the animals and buried them.

After the fossils we went and looked at some rock paintings left by the San somewhere between 4000 and 500 years ago. We spent the night at a hotel on the Atlantic coast. I went swimming…super cold. There is a big current that comes from Antarctica and runs along the Western coast of southern Africa..so the water is really cold. Somewhere around 50F.

Monday talk on wetland conservation and look at some pelicans. Afterwards drive to the next bay north and have a visit to a massive colony of Gannets. Big sea birds. They were everywhere on the small island. Last year there were no birds. Apparently some seals decided to come eat some gannets, then the gannets left, no surprise. This year there were visible seals basking in the sun on a nearby island, but they hadn’t attacked the birds yet so no problem. Next drive to the cederberg.

Along the side of the road on the way to cederberg, we saw several center pivot irrigation plots growing potatoes on inland beach sand. We also saw several familiar sized circles with no irrigation and no plant life. The farmers grow potatoes for 3-5 years, until the land is completely depleted…it is a deserts and they are growing on sand which is very nutrient poor. After 3-5 years the land is discarded and new plot is set up somewhere else.. Regeneration of used potato plots takes far more than 3-5 years.

The Cederberg, which translates as Cedar mountain, is a conservation area setup for the conservation of the endemic, Cedar. The area is mixed in control, the conservation organization controls most of the mountains, but the valleys are privately held by farmer who continue to farm the land. It was thought that the Cedars disappeared because of overharvest and deforestation to clear farm land. But recent pollen studies by certain UCT professors( the program sponsor amoung others) indicate that the Cedars, at least 10000 years back were never a dominant species and never constituted a closed canopy forest. They did however constitute more of the vegetation than they do today, but that might be do to climate change in the last 10000 years. We took a hike to look at the cedars, they only grow at elevation in secluded pockets now. It looks like a cedar tree..just like every other one I have ever seen. But it might not be around forever, so the have started a nursery program and tree plantings.

We had talk on the leopards of the Cederberg. The cederberg is actually a very arid area. Similar to the basin and range deserts. In addition to leopards, there are also cats similar to a lynx, a relative of the hyena, foxes, skunks, porcupines, and a variety of rodents and a species of hyrax. The cederberg leopard is actually its own subspecies, distinct from the famous African leopard. The cederberg leopard is 1/3-1/2 the size of an African leopard probably due to the relative lack of food in the more arid environment. We didn’t see a leopard, but we saw pictures. The guy who came was part of the Cederberg leopard conservancy. He has been working over the last several years studying the leopard and trying to convince the farmers to stop shooting, poisoning, trapping and generally killing leopards. He began gps collaring leopards and from the collars and remote motion sensitive cameras was able to determine the homeranges of the cederberg leopards and approximate numbers of leopards in the area. Farmers in a particular valley have reported that have severe leopard problems…and have several leopards preying on their hobby sheep. As it turns out, there is only one leopard in the area..which was photographed on all their farms on different nights. The problem with the farmers killing the leopards is that the dead leopard is quickly replaced by a younger leopard which then continues to kill their sheep. Killing a leopard creates a vacuum, open territory with easy yummy sheep to eat, a relatively good territory that is not passed up. So the leopard conservation fund has been working with the farmers to build leopard proof fences around their corrals and to buy Anatolian Sheppard dogs to protect their flocks. Before the corral fences were 3-4 feet tall and could be stepped over by humans or easily jumped by a leopard. Now the sheep are corralled in 6foot enclosures with roofs = leopard proof. The Anatolian Sheppard dogs weigh more than most of the leopards and me. A male is about 80kg. the dogs live with the sheep and attack anything that threatens the sheep or the dog, including strangers and sheep thieves.

That was the end of the field trip, now it is back to globalization and the natural environment classes for another few weeks, then a final paper and presentation then enrollment in UCT classes.