Father's Day Game Drives: Stalking the Elusive Cape Mountain Zebra

We grabbed our collection of maps and the new third edition of On Route in South Africa we had just bought and we hit the road for the long Father's Day / Youth Day weekend. We drove from Joburg to Cape Town through the heart of the Great Karoo.

We stopped over for a night in a historic white cottage in the quaint Karoo town of Graaff-Reinet and stayed another night in a private game lodge on the border of the Karoo National Park near Beaufort West.

And during the day we stalked the wily Cape Mountain zebra in three National Parks, the Karoo, Camdeboo and Mountain Zebra National Park.

He has a reason to be wily. The Cape Mountain zebra almost became extinct in the 1930's. The Mountain Zebra National Park was named specifically for the protection of the few that survived and after a shaky start, during which numbers in the park shrank to only three, they began to increase in numbers. There are now more than 1500 Cape Mountain zebra and have successfully translocated to other reserves and National Parks.

zebra and ostrich: a study in black and white

The Cape Mountain zebra looks very different than the more common Burchell's or Plains zebra. The stripes on the flanks do not extend to the belly as they do on a Plains zebra. The belly on the Mountain zebra is therefore all white. The muzzle is black and white outlined with chestnut which almost looks pink from a distance.

But the biggest difference is the lack of "shadow stripe" that the Plains zebra displays which divides its white stripes. The Mountain zebra white stripes are clear white. Now you know.

(Happy Father's Day, Vince!)