Laikipia, Kenya
The zebra lacks a rumen and eats at least twice as much as a cow. On our modest Kenyan ranch we run several hundred head of Boran cattle. In our arid conditions, this number is carefully calculated on a stocking rate of so many beasts to the acre. If you add hundreds of zebra to the pasture you swiftly finish your grass. During this year’s drought, and the chaos beyond our boundaries, wild animals were poached and they starved. Many arrived on the farm so desperate that they smashed through walls and fences to get in to where it was safe. I let them stay. The elephants came and went as they pleased, barging through any barrier. Huge dewlapped eland, oryx with heads like African dance masks, alien-headed hartebeest, Grant’s gazelles and Tommies with their dressage trot — even the common zebra’s cousin, the Grévy’s, with its Mickey Mouse ears and rocking-horse body.
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