For a few years now, farmers in the Pyrenees of Lleida have been closing their farms to prevent roe deer from eating the apple trees. Some have tried other remedies before, such as spreading human hair from local hairdressers around the perimeter of the estate. According to rural agents and farmers, the smell of hair scares animals away, but it only works for a short period of time and producers have to replenish it.
Job Roig is an agricultural engineer from Barcelona who has settled in Saurí (Pallars Sobirà) and advises producers. It combines wildlife studies with the conservation of local varieties. He has bet on apple trees for cider and has suffered damage caused by roe deer. He has closed them this year.
Carles Vázquez and Sílvia Letosa have also suffered damage. They live in Arró (Val d'Aran). For many years they have used the hair kept by a hairdresser in Vielha to keep roe deer away from the Areny de Noguera apple trees (in Baixa Ribagorça d'Osca). This year they no longer resorted to the remedy of human hair. They have chosen to leave the radio on, with talk shows, with little music, so that the voices scare the animals.
They have also protected the trees with plastic mesh and copied a system from a documentary in which a farmer in Canada left shoots that farmers usually pluck from the trunks so that the tree does not lose vigor. "The man - explains Carles - said that he left these shoots, which the roe deer and deer reach. I am doing the same. They are eaten and do not harm the rest of the tree”.
