Babies

Male nyala, in the bush

South Africa prides itself on its public game parks – available at moderate cost to all, and offering all of the amenities provided by the many private game reserves that dot the savannah landscapes of northern South Africa.  They are “people’s parks,” and we were able to secure a reservation with just a day’s notice because the school holidays have not yet begun.  We prevailed upon Geert to stay a few days and watch over ile de Grace, and rented a car for a week.

On our drive from the Zululand Yacht Club to the game reserve, we passed dozens of youngsters, each in a blue uniform – jumpers for the girls, shirt and loosely-worn ties for the boys – walking home along the highway, skirting the grazing cows and passing cars, returning to their homes after the morning exams.  It’s almost summer in South Africa, and school is nearly out – we were just beating the local’s holiday rush to the parks.

Our destination, the Hluhluewe-iMfolozoi Game Reserve, about 200 km northwest of our boat’s marina, offers evening and morning drives through the park, led by a guide, so we signed up for that evening’s drive, and then drove to our rondeval to offload our gear and get some afternoon rest. 

That evening, as Jupiter rose in the east, alongside a waxing moon, and as Mercury and Venus sit unusually high in the western sky, we climb into the modified 4x4 truck, arrange ourselves on the blanket we would use to warm our legs after the sun set, and hold on as we roll down the dirt track into the scrub and grass of a 96,000 hectare game reserve.

Mother white rhino to left; baby to right

After a series of sightings of feeding giraffes, grazing impala, rooting warthogs, motionless nyala, and other mammals of the reserve, and as dusk folded into evening, we hear a slight and distinct whinnying sound from the bush to our left:  a massive white female rhino, trailed by an impossibly tiny rhino baby, the baby nuzzling its head against the mother’s rear legs and underbelly.  It was hungry.  After a few steps, the mother pauses, and as we watch from about 20 meters away, the baby drops its head, with its tiny, as-yet-developed horn, and leans in to suckle at the mother’s teat.  Paying no attention to the humans in the truck, the rhino mother attends to the important business of feeding its young, and the young rhino focuses only on the milk.  In a world where zoos trumpet the arrival of any birth to a large mammal, we feel blessed to witness this tiny miracle in the wild, this passing of life from rhino mother to rhino baby.

Mother and baby zebra

Babies.  Over the next few days, during a series of early morning and evening guided and self-guided drives through the park, we see a lot of babies in the bush, and witness first hand the various mating rituals and procreation strategies used by the animals of the open African ranges.   We see baby zebras, hovering close to their mothers, knowing in their DNA that in a few months, they will be on their own, foraging for food while always alert for danger, often grazing near giraffes whose height provides them and any adjacent feeders an early alert to the presence of predators. 

We see baby impala and nyala, loitering near the packs of females, each herd containing a single male.  We see baby giraffes, nibbling on the shorter acacia trees while their mothers ate nearby, each giraffe in a group staying within visual distance of the others. 

Dung beetles, rolling along

We watch the struggling flight of a male Red-Collared Widow bird, its tail grown impossibly long during the mating season, grown long to attract females, the male willing to sacrifice its ability to fly and evade predatory hawks in order to attract potential mates.

As we drive, we swerve around male dung beetles, each the size of a quarter, each pushing a ball of rhino dung the size of a lemon, the female dung beetle scampering to stay atop the rolling ball in order to inject her eggs into the ball, someday to hatch and the larva to survive by eating its way out of the ball.

We find ourselves alongside a small herd of elephants, led by the aging females, seemingly awash in babies, each hovering close to their mothers and aunties, some growing tusks, others as yet too young for tusks.   They had just emerged from their daily watering and bathing, and are eating their way northward, soon to cross the road we are parked on.

Mother and baby elephant, feeding along the river

 We stop to examine a chunk of foam wrapped around a branch, the branch hanging above a large puddle of water, and learn that the foam tree frog rubs its hind legs together to produce a foam, which adheres to and hardens around the branch, allowing the female to inject her eggs into the foam, where after a few days, the tadpoles fall down into the puddle.  Thus, the frog avoids the vulnerability of eggs lying unprotected in waters frequented by birds and ground mammals, each scavenging for food in their own right.

We pass a pair of ostriches, the mother leading, the father trailing behind the three chicks hoping to escape predators like the leopard and the eagle.  

Male ostrich, with baby, bottom right

Babies everywhere in the bush – life exploding in the relative protection of a game reserve, but even so, vulnerable to predators – the hyenas whose jaws are capable of grinding bone into food, and whose scat is chalk-white as a result; the leopards and lions and other carnivores, and the elephants who refuse to defer to other animals at the watering holes that are sprinkled across the park. 

Hyena -- a solo scavenger and carnivore

And as we witnessed these affirmations of the genetically-driven urge to procreate, I was reminded that the earth’s population passed the 7 billion person mark a few weeks ago, an event that came as no surprise to the two of us, who continue to be amazed at the number of children we saw in islands as far flung as the Galapagos, Tahiti, and Sumbawa, Indonesia.  Here in Africa, the numbers are staggering:  between now and the end of the century, this continent will add over 2.5 billion people to the human race, according to the UN, an increase almost four times the total combined population growth of the rest of the world. Europe will lose people, and even Southeast Asia, with China, will add only 432 million people by century’s end.  Put another way, Africa will be responsible for 80% of the world’s population growth over the next 90 years.

There are 11 countries where the average woman will bear at least 6 children, and 9 of those countries are in Africa.  South Africa’s birth rate has been falling of late – more women in the workforce, and a rising standard of living – but for most of Africa, high birth rates create immense pressure on the ability of sub-Saharan African countries to sustain even bare minimum living standards for their ever-increasing populations.

It’s a big continent, Africa, just about the same size as the combined landmasses of the United States, China, Australia, and India, so the issue isn’t whether there’s enough room for the population.  Instead, it’s a question of how the arid land, faltering economies, and volatile governments will support the basic needs – housing, food, health, clean water, jobs – of their growing populations. 

Female giraffe at watering hole

In a game reserve, such as Mhluhluwe-Imfolozoi, the eco-system balances itself out over the decades – nature can absorb imbalances, eventually equilibrating. In contrast, humankind and our genetically- and economically-driven procreative urges seem able to generate unsustainable intra- and inter-generational pressures on water, land, air, and economic resources, to override or ignore nature’s normal, but brutal, corrective forces, at least during the lifetimes of today’s children and their children.. 

So we return home, reflecting on babies, human and otherwise, after a day spent watching a nursing baby rhino, a herd of impala protecting their young, and a mother giraffe and her offspring walking into the bush, impossibly graceful, their necks swaying against a bright blue African sky. 

Ringed by fences and protected by conservation laws, the animals in game parks might thrive amid the human population pressures of the unfolding century, but what is to be said of the families and children of Africa, living in its increasingly crowded countries, cities, townships, and villages?