Survival
The previous chapter 'Heaven or Hell' here.
For over one million years the wildebeest have roamed the savannah of Tanzania and Kenya, making a yearly round-trip migration of over one thousand kilometres, every year. Every year about a quarter of a million of them are killed.
You would have thought that someone would have warned them by now.
A million years is plenty of time for natural selection to work its magic on these animals. Plenty of time to alter their habits to avoid being killed. Plenty of time to improve their ability to chose the best, safest path across the Mara. Or even use the bloody bridge.
Unfortunately a million years is also plenty of time for the Mara to change its course. It probably didn't even exist when they first started walking round in giant circles, following the distant rain.
These two factors cancel each other out. An easy crossing for one generation makes no difference. It would take a hundred generations to impact on their inherited behaviour. By that time, their world would look completely different.
We had arrived at one such crossing. An easy crossing. A crossing without difficult rocks to climb or gargantuan jaws to avoid.
In a hundred generations it will be completely different. Completely unrecognisable. I probably won't be there...
All this means that these beasts will never learn a safe place to cross. What seems to us to be a form of mass suicide is to them, simply an inevitable final solution.
If only they could communicate with each other instead of simply following the rest of the herd. This, of course, refers not just to wildebeest, but to all of us.
Pause for reflection...
This pressure of cruel selection changes more than just one species. What appears to be disastrous for one species may favour another. The loss of quarter of a million souls sounds horrendous if you happen to be the soul of a gnu, but it also feeds so many other souls. Non-gnu souls. Without all this death there would be so much less life.
Thus ends today's 'phil'osophy lesson.
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This particular crossing we were now witnessing involved a lot of mooing and swearing, but not much panic. A kind of stampede in slo-mo.
In one side. Trundle trundle. Out the other side.
However, their innate instinct is to panic given any excuse.
So some of them, naturally, do.
Here they go. Silly buggers.
Forget an orderly wade in the water.
Time to speed up. Let's create a dust cloud.
Oooooh. A dust cloud. That sounds like fun.
The signal had been sent. The cries, the swearing, the dust cloud, attracted beasts from far and wide.
Having heard of the wild party, the gatecrashers arrive, pouring through the welcoming smog.
They were arriving in their thousands.
Already in party mode.
They now had only one goal in mind. Cross that bloody river!
Except for the occasional idiot...
The tempo was heating up. This was now a real stampede even though no one knew why.
The ambiance had changed from one of cool calm acceptance...
...with the occasion brave individual...
...or three...
...through a 'leaping all over the place' idiocy...
...to the 'climb all over each other' madness.
Then, as the last drunken beast left the party, it was all over. Every last wildebeest and zebra left unscathed if slightly hungover.
They had crossed over.
Therefore a couple of idiots went back again. You can never have too much fun.
Half an hour later, a little further upriver, another attempt at a crossing by others that had missed the message about that easy crossing.
But this time, it was bleedin' obvious that this would be a seriously bad place to try crossing.
The crocs entered the the water in anticipation.
But instead of wildebeest, they got hippos.
A baby led the charge.
An entire pod followed in what looked less like a paddle in the local pond, more like an apocalyptic tsunami.
Hippos are not an animal to tangle with. Even crocs will leave them alone. Getting stepped on by a hippo is not a good life-choice.
Further up a tributary, some baboons were also attempting their own crossing. After stopping for the obligatory bit of grooming and groping.
Here they go. Hmmm. Jump over or jump in?
There is no need to even get your feet wet.
Maybe the wildebeest should use this method...
Even some elephants were having a go.
They didn't try leaping however.
Let's face it, any crocs in there would simply get flattened.
Here's a random photo of a warthog.
And incase you thought we'd forgotten, yes, here's another leopard for you.
Time to head back to camp.
Stopping only for a quick sundowner photo (and the odd bottle of wine).
The musical shaped cloud has been formed by yet another bush fire.
The original big ball of fire finally went to earth and we headed back to camp, avoiding being enveloped in flame for the whole journey.
After taking our showers (with no buckets involved), we were treated to a very special meal to celebrate thirty very special years together.
{Applause}
A very special way to finish a very special day.
Tomorrow would be our last full day in the Wild. A sobering thought, even with a very special bottle of champagne...
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