Page 34 - Silver Lakes April 2021

NATURE

THE YEAR OF THE ZEBRA

By James Clarke, Photography by Mary Broadley

ne of the most notable things we Their association is also said to have a can take three or four times that number.
found in rain-soaked Kruger Park survival purpose because one of them, Twice, on separate days, we had the entire
Olast month was the high number and I am not sure which, is said to be more hide to ourselves.
of zebras. Oh yes, and of course how green alert than the other and likely to spot a
it was. I cannot recall seeing so much predator in time. Certainly, you will never But it was the sight of so many zebras that
vigorous growth and so much water even catch zebra, all heads down at the same enthralled us. Whenever we saw zebra,
after the Millennium Flood. time, grazing. There’ll always be some on mostly in small herds and at the roadside,
the lookout. we were able to get quite close. They
The grass was as high as an elephant’s eye were unfazed and we were able to study
and 2021 is surely going to be noted in the Our observations were, of course, highly them and wonder anew what their bizarre
park as the year of the zebras. I have never subjective for we only had access to the stripes were all about.
seen so many. southwestern corner between the Phabeni
Gate and Skukuza. All the sand roads were Nobody really knows. Each animal has
One tends to take the Burchell’s zebra, the closed. a different pattern – a bit like human
plains zebra, for granted. It is a species fingerprints. Science has established
instantly recognised and associated with We’d visited the park three months earlier that zebras are, basically, white animals
Africa all over the world. to report on the effects of the collapse in with black stripes and not the other way
tourism and the closure of camps. Panic around. And they can raise the hairs along
The zebra’s favourite grazing companions, Dam near Skukuza - the park’s premier the black stripes but not the white hairs in
the blue wildebeest, appeared to be hide - was padlocked. We feared it would between.
totally outnumbered this season, maybe still be closed this time but, to our joy, the
by as much as 10 to one. The two tend to gate was unlocked. A notice announced But why would evolution have left them so
graze together because zebra prefer taller that only 10 people were allowed at a time, vividly striped when all other four-legged
grasses and this opens up the shorter stuff though nobody was around to count. animals have developed cryptically-
favoured by wildebeest. Under normal circumstances the hide coloured hides? One suggestion is that

32 INTRA MUROS APRIL 2021