Efficacy of the repellent RO‐PEL® in reducing damage by the rock hyrax(Procavia capensis)to fruit trees

Abstract

The rock hyrax (Procavia capensis) lives in Israel in natural crevices of rocky terrain and in long heaps or terraces of rocks that were uprooted in the process of rocky ground reclamation and dumped around newly-planted fruit orchards. The hyraxes browse on rows of deciduous and subtropical fruit trees adjacent to the animals' rocky shelter. Fruit trees thereby lose most of their leaves, and branches or stems of seedlings are bent and broken under the weight of the animals. The commercial repellent, RO-PEL®, was tested in probe and field trials. RO-PEL®-sprayed and unsprayed avocado and mango seedlings were placed in a pen into which three hyraxes were introduced. Most of the leaves of both sprayed and unsprayed seedlings were consumed in 4 and 11 days (avocado and mango seedlings respectively). However, a field trial was conducted in a citrus orchard, in which the rows of seedlings adjacent to rock terraces had been damaged by the hyraxes. On the sprayed and the unsprayed seedlings the leaves were counted during the experiments; there was a significant difference in the numbers of sprayed and unsprayed leaves consumed (P = 0.01), with reduction of the damage on the sprayed trees being 42.6%. Later, when new leaves had sprouted, the hyraxes consumed the leaves irrespective of whether they had or had not been sprayed. Consequently the feasibility of using RO-PEL® to repel the rock hyrax remains problematic.