WHEN ZULU REGAINED HIS HORSE senses he found he was being stared down by a dozen or more zebra stallions, each no doubt wondering who the peculiar cross-dressing gate-crasher was trying to sneak into their party. The rest of the scattered zebra herd had also quit grazing and were all looking at the black horse like he was possibly armed and dangerous.
The horse must have felt like he’d been caught in a lewd act when suddenly a spotlight had fixed on him. If it had been a Disney movie this would be when the horse started a feeble tap dance and the zebras would say to one another “only its mother could love it”. But it was no movie. His next move could seal the horse’s fate one way or another.
The fact that Zulu not only survived his first lone encounter with the wild zebras of Mashatu, but later become fully integrated into the larger herd, suggests he understood enough about survival to know it was a good time to back right off. Whatever the dangers, a horse – as much as with a zebra, a donkey or a mule – is a social animal with no instinct stronger than to be part of the herd.
In the wilds there is a lot more bluster than actual fighting. People reading Darwin often get that part of the “struggle for survival” wrong because a physical fight, as opposed to a vocal or behavioural display, can lead to one or both contestants being injured, which in turn would compromise their chances of survival. It is not so much a fight for survival in the jungle as a posturing for dominance.
When a horse or zebra, especially a stallion, attempts to join a new group it will have to fight it out physically with all-comers in order to gain acceptance. With zebras it usually takes two or three days for a new order to be established. In Zulu’s case it took significantly longer; he was a smart old pitse but he was just that, an alien intruder.
He started by keeping his distance, pretending to be just grazing out on his own. By keeping a furtive watch on the zebras the horse could see when they were starting to ignore him, although occasionally a herd stallion would rush out towards him and Zulu would quickly back off a short distance to dampen the zebra’s enthusiasm. The further it drifted from the herd, the more vulnerable the zebra was, feeling the safety of an elastic umbilicus pulling it back to the herd.
For the next few days a smart horse would spend its time making slow approaches – out of the corner of his eye you could call it – to the blunt end of the herd where the low-ranking females and young males stood a little way off on their own. But if sometimes the horse got too close, a zebra stallion would charge towards him.
Soon he had used up his entire Italian horse vocabulary, using gestures: baring his teeth (I want to groom you or be groomed by you), swinging his head with his mouth open (I bite you), extending a foreleg (I keek you). Sometimes a sub-dominant zebra stallion would dart in from behind and nip Zulu (I neep you).
Thereafter came the more nuanced period of horse French, using expressions somewhat more subtle than horse Italian: wrinkled nose (irritation), drooping lower lip (relaxation, though sometimes put on for effect), or cocking an ear (hey, did you hear that, or see that?).
As Zulu slowly inveigled himself ever closer into the herd, he had to fight off the challenges of each harem male. Luckily for him, at 15.3 hands (compared with just 11 or 12 tops for an adult male plains zebra), Zulu was substantially larger than they. In the posturing for herd position, size counts a lot.
Still, there was lots of equine shouting and sparring and Zulu sustained more than his fair share of kicks and bites to leave him with welts and cuts all over. Fortunately, zebras are unshod. But anyway it was not in Zulu’s nature to back down and so bit by bit, bite by bite, after each encounter he established personal space closer to the herd.
Generally zebras will gather in large congregations only when water is scarce and they rely on the same shrinking, stagnating pools. By now, with the great flood well and truly over and without any further purpose or forward momentum, the mega-herd started to fragment.
Real fights broke out between dominant stallions as attempts were made to re-establish breeding herds, stealing females away from harems, or younger males attempting to move low-ranking females out of their former groups in order to start their own harems. The super herd spread out and moved off westwards away from the wedge of land at The Confluence. That was the last and best chance for stallions without harems to take advantage of the confusion.
Zulu had never been part of a wild herd before. At Bergsig Farm, at Karl Plaas research centre and at Limpopo Valley humans had always defined the boundaries of movement and behaviour. A pitse never had to find food or protect itself from other wild creatures; even when and with whom to mate would be predetermined in the confines of paddock and stable.
Zulu took his time observing the zebras, learning the subtle ways in which they differed from his own kind, working out the various poles of attraction and repulsion of the emerging groups as they moved westwards back towards the Jwala and Majale catchment areas, seeing which was strong and which was weak, waiting for the moment when he could take a gap.
A smart strategy for Zulu would be to convince the zebras he was just one of them: a zebra is after all a black animal with white stripes, not the other way around. The optical illusion is of our own making, perceiving white as a positive space and black as a negative one, like a black gash in the white fabric (foetal zebras start life all black). He would have learned that deep down, at the level of instinct and DNA, horses, pitses, were not so different from wild pitse-ya-nagas. Especially a black one.
Studies of feral mustang herds in Wyoming have shown that bonds between second- and lower-tier horses create second hierarchies within the herd quite distinct from the main pecking order. A low-ranking member that allies itself to one higher up enjoys more access to better food and they are picked on less than “nerd” horses that do not have the protection of a “jock” horse – not much different from any schoolyard. Similarly, a coalition of nerd horses, while not offering any real protection from a serious onslaught by the jocks, at least serves as positive reinforcement within the low-ranking circle (think The Big Bang Theory).
Using the camouflage of herd behaviour the black stallion made a slow approach, grazing nearby, never too close but always in sight or scent of the moving crowd. Slowly the lower-ranked individuals began to approach him, curious animals as they are.
Given his size advantage, Zulu soon started gathering the attention of younger males who were at risk of being bullied in the herd. He felt secure in the knowledge that he could hold his own in any one-on-one confrontation with a zebra stallion.
Both horses and zebras form harems or long-lasting family groups with a strong bond between individuals. Even when the dominant male is replaced or dies the group will stay together. It is not only the stallion that chooses his mares; mares play an active role in choosing which stallion to follow. This mutual attachment is one factor that gives zebra herds their stability (horses in the wild are much the same). Stallions will not tolerate the close attentions of any other sexually mature male without challenging it to a fight.
The other bond is that between mothers and their offspring. A herd is a harem with usually around six adult females, their offspring and the alpha male. Male offspring will stick with their mothers until around three years of age, at which stage they become sexually mature and drift off or are pushed out (often by their own mothers with whom they might attempt to mate) to seek the company of bachelor herds.
If they try to stick around any longer they will be chased out by the dominant male. From around the age of five they will start to challenge for their own herd. Zulu was around 10 years old at this stage but he was in no great rush to challenge for a herd; first order of business would be merely fitting in.
The dawn chorus along the densely wooded Jwala River is positively orchestral – to human ears at any rate that regard birdsong as a thing of beauty unto itself alone. Like Keats’ nightingale that is “pouring forth thy soul abroad in such an ecstasy”. However, to wild animals the hue and cry of other wild creatures is a message with gradations of meaning: fear, fright, warning, anger, or the simple expedient of saying, “This is me, this is my place. I dare you to prove otherwise.”
Alarm calls are primarily what to listen for. There is a symbiotic relationship between many wild creatures, for example baboons up a tree having the advantage of distant vision and impala foraging below having their acute senses focused on the ground. Both baboons and impala have strikingly similar alarm barks that warn their own kind as well as each other of imminent danger. Although baboons are not above snatching a lamb for a meal.
Game birds such as francolins, spurfowls and guineafowls, which scratch around on the ground for seeds and insect larvae, are usually the first to see a small-spotted genet hunting for eggs or chicks in the tangled mass of vines and burr grasses, or a serval hunting for field mice and small game birds. Or perhaps a leopard stalking in the grass that would not turn up its nose at a passing guineafowl but would much prefer an adult impala or baboon.
All animals, as well as hunters and game rangers, listen for these calls. At approaching danger an ever-alert impala will issue a loud snort and then take off in leaps and bounds, clearing the bush in arcing vaults. A baboon sentry (there is always one on duty while the troop is foraging) will issue a sharp ba-hoo as a general danger alert. However, when their arch-enemy, a leopard, is seen the troop will scatter with all manner of shrieking and barking and then the entire group will take up the alarm and rush around in panic.
Unfortunately for baboons, leopards can climb trees nearly as well as they do, so their normal escape strategy is compromised. The baboons will retreat into the uppermost canopy of a large leadwood or mashatu tree and continue shouting down. Safety in numbers, rather you than me, Bob. Like surfers out on the backline.
A wise leopard knows it is simply a waiting game. It only has to sit at the base of the tree and issue wood-sawing grunts to keep the primates in a high state of panic. Eventually one will climb too high and its branch will break or, in a general free-for-all, one baboon will push another and it will fall to its fate.
A fast, high-pitched beer and cognac, beer and cognac will be a crested francolin issuing an alarm call. A piercing, two-syllable co-qui, co-qui will be a pocket-sized coqui francolin. A Swainson’s spurfowl in peril will issue a kraaa kraaa kraaa, dropping in pitch and volume when startled. The Natal spurfowl’s alarm call is kak-keek, kak-keek, kak-kekeekeek kacheeky kacheeky. They will all try to creep deeper into dense undergrowth to hide, but might eventually take to the wing in a loud fluttering that in itself can spook the ambusher.
Helmeted guineafowls have one of the most recognisable alarm calls, not least of all because they roost in trees and are always on the lookout for trouble. A resonating kek, kek, kek, kaaaaa, ka, ka is their bugle cry. Once they have dispersed, a family of game birds will use a special contact call: buck-wheat, buck-wheat for the guineafowl; ki-kerrick, ki-kerrick for the crested francolin. This call is in fact a duet – the female calling ki, ki and the male answering kerrick, kerrick.
All this noise will sound like gibberish to the safari novice, just background music or din, depending: a francolin calling stridently outside a safari tent at first light is likely to be the target of a well-aimed boot. But to animals tuned in to the every twitter and chirp, tweet and woof in the bush, it is a language clear in meaning. While working as a safari horse Zulu had learned the general vocabulary of the wild creatures but did not pay it full attention. Now he was taking a crash course in advanced savanna survival like his life depended on it.
Zulu followed behind a herd of zebras he had selected on account of the lead stallion being somewhat older and less aggressive than the others. They headed south and moved across open, stony terrain parallel to the Matabole River in the direction of Cheetah Koppies.
The various fragmented zebra herds were all headed in more or less the same direction, but began to drift apart like galaxies in an expanding animal universe. The area was dotted with stunted mopane trees, terminalia and combretum bushes on which large antelope and giraffes liked to browse. In the distance, impala were giving alarm calls while watching a lioness walking with the swaying, nonchalant gait of a very confident lady going calling.
Because she was far off and travelling ahead of the zebras there was no sense of panic. The giraffes watched from their elevated position, carrying on eating but never taking their eyes off the tawny predator. The day was cool, even into the afternoon, with streets of cotton-wool clouds in the sky softening the early autumn sunshine. It would be a good winter in Mashatu, with grass enough for all and everyone well fed deep into the driest months of September and October.
Dotted among the mopane and silver cluster-leaf bushes were umbrella trees, Acacia tortilis. Normally they would grow into impressive leafy awnings but here the briny soil of an old pan prevented them growing much more than a metre in height. The close-gardening attentions of browsers such as steenbuck and kudu that loved their nutritious, feathery compound leaves helped maintain their bonsai appearance. Their armoury of long, slender white thorns could easily pierce a leg or the frog of a horse’s hoof.
As the herds moved across the gravel beds and towards the alluvial plains that were their preferred habitat, Zulu hung out at the back, cosying up to any foals that lagged behind, urging them forward until their mothers came to fetch them, slowly gaining the confidence of the adult females as well as the attentions of the young ones. Although an alpha male leads the herd, it is actually an alpha female that keeps the zebra harem together. When on the move a herd will march in single file, the alpha female in front, the rest of the females in order of their social ranking and the stallion somewhere in the middle. Foals walk behind their mothers, all in Indian file along well-worn game trails, moving aside only to avoid any thorn bushes, boulders or aardvark holes.
A black-backed jackal that had been dozing under a bush in their path jumped up and trotted off into the distance. Then a family of kudu caught the attention of the lead female; they were all standing stick still with heads above the foliage staring intently towards the afternoon sun, their large radar-dish ears at attention. The zebras bunched into a tight group. They too stared into the low sun. That was when a group of five cheetahs stood up out of the shade of a white-trunked shepherd’s tree (Boscia albitrunca) and trotted off on a heading that would cut diagonally across their own.
Zebras can go without water for a few days but ideally like to drink every day. There was no standing water on the quarzitic swells of land, so on through the afternoon the zebras trudged. They were headed for one of the waterholes of the Matabole called Moddergat that lay just east of Cheetah Koppies. The cheetah family had long since gone its own way and the zebras – including Zulu – were somnambulating, heads hanging low, hard hoof keratin clunking on small rocks in the path every now and again, each one lost in its own daydreams (of whatever zebras daydream about, most likely water).
While on the move it is almost impossible to tell the difference between dried-out elephant droppings and small rounded dolerite boulders in the path. Since all the major game paths in the region are really elephant paths, you only find out which when you feel and hear either a soft thwock or a hard clunk.
As they approached the first line of riverine trees where the Nyaswe and Matabole rivers converge, the soil began to get softer and sandier as the distinctive group of 12 zebras and one horse reached the alluvial floodplain. The single path fanned out into a confusion of tracks as it neared the river. That was when the lead female stopped; she had picked up lion spoor and immediately became alert. The rest of the herd quickly sensed her trepidation and came to a halt behind her, ears pricked, nostrils flared.
The lioness had rejoined her pride. The zebras had not yet had a drink that day but between them and sweet, cool water was a stumbling block. The zebra stallion made his way to the head of the line and took stock. There was about 30 metres of open ground to the croton thicket. The lioness had gone into long grass somewhere there, but where was she? The zebra stallion slowly approached the riverine hedge, snorting to make his presence known. That was when a large maned lion sat up in the gloomy shade of a wobbly-trunked appleleaf tree, the blackened end of its tail flicking from side to side in agitation.
While horses will flee at the first sign of danger, the first instinct of a zebra herd is to stand and fight. The stallion takes the head while the females form a circle around the young. Hyenas and wild dogs know this and will exploit it by darting in from all sides, but a well-drilled zebra herd can hold off a bunch of dogs or cats until they lose interest. It is only if they make a run for it that they become vulnerable because there will always be a weakest one.
The alpha stallion moved slowly forwards and the lioness rose, along with two sub-adult males. The zebras stopped. This gave Zulu his gap, taking a position just slightly behind the alpha stallion to show his support. Being of a flighty nature he was unnerved by the zebra’s defiant tactic but took comfort from the herd around him. The lions were not ready to hunt yet, but if a tray of canapés is presented to you who’s not going to grab a bite? But the zebras weren’t serving and stood their ground.
Luckily these were not desperate times and although they were standing in the hot sun, they waited until the lions slumped back down in the shade. Zulu had seen lions previously but there had always been a rider with a rifle to send them scattering.
While lions living in the Okavango Delta have no option but to cross open water frequently in their travels, the lions of much drier Tuli do not care to swim at all and will do so only if absolutely necessary. This allowed the herd to move off downstream, cross and then drink safely at Moddergat.
Zulu maintained a close distance to the zebra stallion, having established his allegiance. It was a strange coalition, almost certainly unique, preposterous, but it would work so long as the horse did not get ideas above his rank.