The Serengeti Desert — A Most Unusual Blended Family and a Tale of Two Dads
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One thing I’ve learned in my week in the Serengeti is that some of the animals here make good parents, and some of them (such as giraffes—sorry, giraffe-lovers!) make surprisingly bad ones.
On the good parenting side: On an early morning game drive, we came across this scene in the photos below—an African Cape Buffalo family out for a stroll. Father in front, baby in the middle, mother in the rear, right?
But then our guide pointed out something startling—the second adult buffalo in the group—the third in the picture—has horns.
He’s also a male.
Why is this so startling? First, because it is mating season on the savannah, and it would be unusual for two males to travel together in a small group.
Secondly, the baby calf in the picture is, by our guide’s reckoning, no more than 2 to 3 months old. That means it would still normally be very attached to its mother, and a mother Cape Buffalo would never be more than a couple of hundred meters away from her baby. However, as we scanned the surrounding flat plains, with well over a mile’s visibility, there was not a single other Cape Buffalo in sight.
Our guide told us that what had probably happened was that the calf’s mother had been injured or killed by a predator. One of the two males was probably the baby’s father, and the other male had probably come to help the father get the baby to safely. Cape Buffalo are known for being very loyal to their herd and will often, for example, turn around and go back to help defend a fellow herd member who is being attacked by lions.
And so I watched, transfixed, for a few moments, as these two two massive bulls, carefully flanking the little calf, picked their way across the savanna towards the herd, where they would find safety and a chance for the calf to nurse. As we drove a little further, we spotted the herd, in single file formation as part of the great migration, five to six kilometers to the west. I hope with all my heart that this little family made it.
And so, here’s today’s Serengeti shout-out: let’s hear it for great fathers - - and for great father figures.Description text goes here
Photography by ZACHARY PEARSON
Photography by Wolfgang Hasselmann
