Porcupine propagators

One of the recent articles in Veld & Flora relating to the activities of porcupines (see below) reminds me of an experience we had some five years ago when we arrived in Betty’s Bay. It was winter and I noticed that most mornings there was activity amongst the Arum Lilies, the bulbs of which had been dug up and partly eaten. After a while I told Jane Forrester, Chief Horticulturist at the Harold Porter National Botanical Gardens about this with a view to obtaining a peaceful solution to the problem. Jane gave three possible solutions.

1. I could approach the CapeNature conservation students who would come and set
a large cage to trap the visitor. When the culprit was caught, they would arrive
and remove the cage and relocate the intruder to the mountains (like the hounded
Betty’s Bay leopard that was eventually shot.)
2. I could urinate around the perimeter of our property and thereby mark our territory and hopefully keep the porcupine away. Anyone who knows the veracity of the winds at Betty’s Bay would agree that this could be a hazardous occupation!
3. When I queried why it appeared that the porcupine was such a messy eater, Jane enlighteningly replied that this manner of eating was Nature’s way of preserving the species as a certain percentage of the leftovers would regenerate themselves. She suggested that I scrape the remnants of the bulb together and plant them back into the triangular hole that the porcupine digs, and then cover it all up with the
excavated sand.

The moral of the story is that the cage still sits at the CapeNature premises, I don’t have to pee in the fynbos and our Arum population has increased as on average, for each bulb that is removed by the nocturnal visitor, five to six new Arum plants are propagated.
John Carroll, Betty’s Bay


A Prickly Story