Who Gnu?

January 11, 2014 at 6:14 am • Posted in animals, Tanzania by PopPop

Baby giraffes, baby lions, leopards: wow. But to me, the mind boggling number of Wildebeest (Gnu=Wildebeest ) thundering by in an unending ribbon of muscle and dust was majestic. They scatter when rocketing across the Savanna in our trucks, the beasts twitching their enormous heads and snapping their shaggy beards, pounding off in zig-zags with startling speed. Zebras are their constant symbiotic friends and their numbers when both are just grazing stretch to the horizon some 15 miles away.

They are both prey for the lions and hyenas but their sheer numbers assure that the herd makes it on and the strong survive, allowing the predators their own existence in this raw and humbling land.