The plains of the Serengeti turn into nature’s largest maternity ward every year between January and March, when up to 500,000 wildebeest calves are born over a period of just two to three weeks. In February, during the peak of the calving season, as many as 8,000 calves can be born in a single day—equivalent to a […]
Tag: zebras
Millionaire big-game hunter, 75, is trampled to death by herd of FIVE elephants while stalking antelope with shotgun
Armed with a shotgun and tracking a rare species of antelope, Ernie Dosio, 75, was killed after stumbling across the animals in dense vegetation in Gabon. The carcass collector had been moving through thick undergrowth with a professional hunter when the pair unknowingly walked into the herd. The animals were said to be so well […]
A South African reserve shows how carbon can catalyze rewilding conservation
TSWALU KALAHARI RESERVE, South Africa — From high on a promontory in the Korannaberg Mountains, a mountain zebra (Equus zebra hartmannae) peers down to the west across the green-dappled plain below, the sun rising behind. In the distance, wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) hunt in the veld, verdant after early rains. And nearby, white rhinos (Ceratotherium […]
“Staring menacingly, the buffaloes encircled our vehicle.” My close encounter with a mega-stampede
We’re parked up in our Land Cruiser on the golden grasslands of Botswana’s Mababe Depression, surrounded by Cape buffaloes caked in mud. “There must be 3,000 of them here,” our guide Jonah Seboko says quietly, scanning the scene with his binoculars. “Beautiful, just beautiful.” That’s not a word I’d ever really associated with the notoriously […]
Can this zebra escape a deadly crocodile’s jaws? Watch heart-wrenching, tense, BBC footage of a perilous battle at the river’s edge
Each year, zebra herds are forced to cross crocodile-infested rivers in search of food and water. In this gripping BBC Earth video, see how these powerful animals use teamwork and courage to survive one of nature’s most dangerous tests. Crocodile vs zebra: watch the BBC Earth footage River crossings are dangerous, with predators lurking […]
Kingdom review – David Attenborough never fails to make nature awe-inspiring
As I watch a leopard hunt in Kingdom, the BBC’s latest David Attenborough-narrated documentary, I find myself thinking about a YouGov survey from a few years ago that found that half of Britons wouldn’t take a free trip to the moon, with 11% turning it down because “there isn’t enough to see and do”. As […]
Why do-gooding animal rights activists are to blame for the bloody slaughter of 600 majestic African elephants
A three-ton bull elephant lies dead on the ground in a remote corner of Africa. His life has been snuffed out by a marksman’s bullet fired into his brain. In a few seconds it was all over. He will have known nothing. Within minutes of his death ten days ago, a wildlife vet was running […]
Climate change threatens unique ‘Samburu Special 5’ wildlife in arid East Africa
In the dry regions of East Africa lives a group of animals unlike any others. Known as the Samburu Special Five to safari operators in Kenya, they are the dry-adapted reticulated giraffe (Giraffa reticulata), Grévy’s zebra (Equus grevyi), beisa oryx (Oryx beisa), gerenuk (Litocranius walleri) and Somali ostrich (Struthio molybdophanes). But they are increasingly imperiled […]