Earlier this month, the New York Times reported that a family in living Prince George County, Maryland, had observed a small herd of zebras from their backyard. The Curling home is only about 30kms from Washington in the United States, so they really never expected to see zebras wandering around.
Yet their ten-year-old daughter, Layla was certain that she had seen five stripped equines peacefully grazing where residents usually expected to encounter deer and other American wildlife.
It appears that the five had escaped from a farm where a herd of 39 zebras was kept.
Why a farmer in Maryland should be keeping 39 zebras we don’t know, but we are certain that seeing zebras in their natural surroundings when we visit the Addo Elephant Park (AEP) is a distinct pleasure.
Zebras are quite common at AEP and they often allow you to drive up to within two metres before they slowly amble away. They are not afraid of cars.
This is in clear contrast to our experiences in most other reserves where they will not stand by and watch a vehicle come to within 50 metres of them. Approach any closer and they run away.
I have even been on foot in a game farm (with no large predators – they assured me) and the zebras took flight before they came within range of my 300mm Canon lens.
In my view, the zebras’ nervousness is a direct result of reserves allowing hunting. When I have put this hypothesis to field guides in these parks, they suddenly become uncharacteristically vague and change the subject.
Not wanting to push the issue too much, I accept that when I visit private reserves, I shouldn’t expect to get close up photos of zebras. This doesn’t matter to me because there are usually great opportunities to see other animals at close range that we couldn’t expect in the SANParks reserves.
When we go to the AEP, zebras often come so close to the car that I cannot fit them in the frame of my 50mm lens. I then have to back off until, I feel far enough to get a good pic, but not too far.
Most of the time, zebras spend their days just grazing away at the short dried up grass in open savannahs. They seem to be able to digest anything because they always look well-fed.
While it is good to be able to take relatively close-up pics of wild animals, they end up being not particularly interesting. Zebras can stand still for a long time while surveying the landscape and this means that you can take sharp photos without risking motion blur – but that is quite boring.
Fortunately, zebras do quite a lot interesting things that can make your pictures more appealing. It gets really exciting when they fight, rearing up on their hind legs and exchanging blows or chasing each other and kicking up the dust. This type of action makes for dramatic action-pics, but it is quite difficult to predict where they are going. I have on several occasions taken photos of fighting zebras but they usually come out blurry. Oh well, that’s a good reason to go back to the park. I’ll try again next time.
Zebras also enjoy rolling in the dust. It can be fascinating to watch as they throw themselves onto their backs in a particularly dusty patch and then roll around kicking their legs in the air. It looks like they really enjoy the experience and once again the show can make for interesting photos.
The striped equines have an unusual habit of opening their mouths wide as if they are laughing. There must be some rational reason for doing this, but they look quite comical when they open their lips and nod their heads.
Different zebra species
There are three species of zebras and one sub-species that have avoided extinction and largely keep to specific regions.
Grévy's zebra is the biggest of the three and is confined to East Africa. It has robust neck, narrow striping patterns and a white belly.
The plains zebra is the most numerous and can be found widely in Eastern and Southern Africa. There is a sub-species known as the Burchell’s zebra which inhabits Southern Africa. It is easy to recognise the Burchell’s zebra because it sports brown ‘shadow’ stripes between the usual black and white stripes.
Mountain zebras can be found in Namibia and semi-arid areas of the Karoo in South Africa. They tend to have narrower stripes and white undersides. They also have a unique dewlap on their necks that none of the other species seem to have.
The downside of culling
While writing this newsletter saying wonderful things about zebras, I was eagerly contemplating my next trip to the Addo Elephant Park and imagining that soon I would be photographing them again. Pausing for a moment, I checked my social media accounts to see what was happening in the park when up popped a message saying that a main road had been blocked by park management.
While it is not unusual for management to close off a road for maintenance purposes, this particular road completely bisects the park as it used by people who live on either side of it. It is a sort of throughway that should never be blocked.
Some people speculated that the road was being graded because it is usually in a terrible state – full of holes, humps and ridges. Others recalled that all five lions in the park had been seen in that area near the Arizona Dam only the day before. Could there have been a horrible ‘accident’?
After a few more exchanges of messages, it transpired that park management had hired an outside company to cull zebras. It apparently had been hired to shoot about 100 zebras, 100 kudus and more than 350 warthogs.
This came as a shock even though I remember SANParks putting out a tender for culling operations last year. This week they are implementing the tender.
This is terrible news for those of us who enjoy admiring wildlife, but of course it is even worse for the animals themselves.
I was bragging earlier in this newsletter about how unafraid animals would usually come right up to my car. I doubt this will happen for a while.
Park communications officer, Fayroush Ludick said that culling has become necessary due to the persistent drought in the area and the overpopulation of certain species. She pointed out that the specific species of warthog that you see at every turn in the park, was not even endemic to the area.
Social media has been abuzz with comments on the culling this week. Most people are uncomfortable with the idea but understand that it is a necessary requirement of park management.
There were some suggestions of using contraceptives to keep populations in check, but it was pointed out that this option is very expensive and labour intensive. Contraceptives are used on the local lion populations but there are only three females to treat so that is manageable.
Another person came up with the idea of increasing the number of lions in the park to help keep down the populations of zebras, kudus and warthogs. This proposal is not outlandish because the although there are only five lions in the main section at the moment, the park has hosted at least 13 lions not too long ago.
One of the problems with this idea is that for some reason the local lions seem to enjoy buffalo meat. They hunt all kinds of antelopes and even warthogs, but they seem to enjoy buffaloes even though they are dangerous and difficult to bring down.
This is a problem because buffaloes, especially the disease free animals of Addo, are much more expensive than the antelopes. So the park management has to think carefully about catering to the expensive tastes of lions.
Apparently there is also limited application of contraceptives for elephants, so their population is growing but in a somewhat controlled manner.
Several angry, and bordering on threatening, messages said they hoped that management was not contemplating elephant culling. Senior people within the park confirmed that this was not the case.
It must be mentioned that elephant culling does occur in other game reserves in South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Namibia.
Culling is a topic that provokes strong opinions. If you would like to share your views on this subject, please leave your comments below.
A month after the zebras escaped, the New York Times reported on September 30 that the five zebras had not been re-captured. Apparently the zebras have become local celebrities with their every move being documented on social media. Joshua DuBois posted on Twitter that he had seen them in Upper Marlboro, Maryland