I hear murmurs of excitement as we round a bend and standing
in the road in front of us is a dazzle of Zebras, including a very young foal.
We watch them grazing for a while, happy to see them content now with the heat
of the afternoon having passed and recent rain providing new shoots of grass on
which they feed. Quite suddenly, sharp eyed tracker Phanuel, exclaims he’s spotted
a Cheetah, lying underneath some bushes just 100 meters away. We drive off into
the veld and indeed; a male cheetah lies there full bellied and snoozing under
a bush.
It is always so special to see a cheetah, as so few exist in
the wild today. We sat captivated, observing his beautiful spots, delicate
whiskers and distinct red-orange eyes that look straight through you. Surprise and
joy of the cheetah aside however, the crowd pleaser of the afternoon remained the zebras, who were still grazing near the road a short way off, and in particular
the young zebra foal, who after hopping around in play started nuzzling its
mother and began to nurse. The collective “aww” was soon interrupted however,
when we realized that the cheetah too was watching the youngster suckling. The
cheetah’s body language changed in an instant and suddenly he was on his
haunches, directly facing the dazzle of zebras. We sat in anguish for the
following minutes that passed as, completely oblivious, the
zebras grazed ever closer to the predator lying in waiting. We had previously
semi-discounted the cheetah from hunting due to his full bellied, panting
nature, but what a turn of events this was to be. It goes to show how
opportunistic these rare animals are however, because without warning, he leapt
up and shot off, scattering zebras every which way, his eyes on one
individual only…the foal. Over in just seconds, the dust settled to present the
cheetah and foal lying in a tangle on the ground, the cheetah’s mouth clamped
firmly onto the foals neck, suffocating it to death.
What happened out next was truly heart rendering as the rest
of the zebras re-grouped, recognised their missing foal, and came back in
search for it, calling out their desperate, shrilly whine, loudest of all it’s
mother. They soon found their quarry, lifeless at the feet of a cheetah, and
apart from snorting alarms and calling out, they recognised that the situation
was helpless, and left the area, heads down, whining in sadness.
Action over, the cheetah panted hard in recovery and then eventually pulled the foal by its tail, beneath a small bush to feed. As if convinced that a nearby predator or scavenger must have heard the zebra alarm calls, he nervously looked all around, in anticipation of an approaching predator coming to steal his kill. None arrived however, but we left before it got too gory, my guests heartbroken at the loss of the young animal they had grown so fond of that afternoon. Such is life and death in the African savannah.
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| Lucky to survive...the rest of the zebras look on at the cheetah suffocating the foal |
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| Checking for approaching danger |
