Tag: quagga

Day 525 – Record Numbers Of Zebras Die Due To Global Horse Paste Shortage

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I know this seems a little premature, while we’re still very much enjoying the fruits of our current pandemic, but it pays to look ahead, and so I took a quick wander down Imaginary Boulevard and soon discovered a terrible ticking time-bomb awaiting planet earth. Especially the stripy members of it.

Strongylus vulgaris

Crazy name, crazy creature.

And a scary life cycle – get this:

During the infective stage of the S. vulgaris life cycle, the larvae that have matured in the intestinal tract will migrate into the surrounding blood vessels. Once in the blood vessels, the larvae will continue their migration throughout the body to various organs causing damage to the blood vessels along the way. This can cause anemia or blockage of blood flow caused by the detachment of blood clots from the vessel wall resulting in tissue death. S. vulgaris are commonly where faeces are present. Harsh environments, such as freezing, do not kill S. vulgaris.

Sounds awful (and it is), but you don’t need to be afraid. It won’t infect you. You’re a human.

It will infect horses, mules, asses (no comment), zebras and quaggas, though. And, in case you hadn’t realised from the description above. IT WILL KILL THEM DEAD.

Fortunately, there is a cure: Horse Paste. This isn’t a paste made from horses, in much the same way that Baby Oil isn’t extracted from actual babies, right. (This is right, right?) (I’m suddenly second guessing myself a bit here…)

Never mind.

Horse Paste is a paste for horses (and mules, asses (no comment), zebras and quaggas). And it contains a chemical which is a member of the macrocyclic lactone class of endectocides and which has a unique mode of action. Compounds of the class bind selectively and with high affinity to glutamate-gated chloride ion channels which occur in invertebrate nerve and muscle cells. This leads to an increase in the permeability of the cell membrane to chloride ions with hyperpolarization of the nerve or muscle cell, resulting in paralysis and death of the parasite. Compounds of this class may also interact with other ligand-gated chloride channels, such as those gated by the neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid.

I didn’t write the bit above but tl;dr Horse Paste KILLS Strongylus vulgaris DEAD.

It’s just that, for some weird reason, right now, there seems to be a global shortage of Horse Paste.
And that’s bad news for our Zebras.

Look how completely fucked off with humans this one appears (it is rather hidden by his face stripes, but an expert could tell you that deep down he’s properly irritated). And who can blame him? Sure, he’s healthy right now because the local stockpile hasn’t quite run dry yet. But he’s about to be eaten from the inside out because some people are just completely thick and they’ve used up all the Horse Paste.

And now imagine if you were a Quagga. Pushed to extinction by humans once already, and now, despite the best efforts of The Quagga Project trying to right wrongs:

The Project is aimed at rectifying a tragic mistake made over a hundred years ago through greed and short sightedness. 

…about to be wiped out again – this time through stupidity and short sightedness. And a lack of Horse Paste. I think that as a quagga, you’d have every reason to be thoroughly pissed off at mankind. Extinction once could possibly be seen as a bit of an oopsie. Twice seems almost like targeted abuse.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. There is, of course, one big winner here: Strongylus vulgaris. And while some idiots might think they are taking Horse Paste to protect themselves from Covid (it won’t) and to show that they are sticking their middle finger up to The Establishment (ooh, you rebel, you!), they’ve actually just been fooled into being witless shills for Big Parasite.

And it’s our zebras that must bear the brunt.

Next week, we tackle the thorny subject of whether Rhino Paste cures HIV.

Groote Schuur Quagga News

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Fair warning: it’s sad news.

But first, what are a Quagga?

Wikipedia says:

The quagga (Equus quagga quagga) is an extinct subspecies of plains zebra that lived in South Africa until the 19th century. It was long thought to be a distinct species, but genetic studies have shown it to be the southernmost subspecies of plains zebra.

That are nice. And what can like to be the Quagga Project?

The Quagga Project is an attempt by a group in South Africa to use selective breeding to achieve a breeding lineage of plains zebra (Equus quagga) which optically resemble the extinct quagga (Equus quagga quagga).

And thus, Quagga Project quaggas are dotted all around the Cape. Some of the most successful here, and (definitely) some of the most local just across the road from Groote Schuur Hospital.

Here’s a really poor photo I took of one back in 2014.

An aside: My, how my photography has improved. Or maybe it hasn’t, and I’m just more selective in what I choose to upload.

Or maybe both.

You decide.

Anyway, it seems that I’m not going to be able to improve on any previous photos of quaggas on the Groote Schuur Estate any time soon:

The animals at Devils Peak/Groote Schuur Estate have been moved due to uncertainty over their water supply during the water restrictions being imposed on Cape Town. Quagga and zebra need to drink daily and even a short interruption to their water supply could have devastating consequences. They have been moved to Elandsberg Farms near Wellington and Groote Post near Darling where they have joined other groups of Quagga in the wild. There are natural water holes on both these properties and the Quagga Project felt it would be safer to keep these animals there.

This is no surprise to me. I’ve been watching the Estate getting browner and browner for the past few months, and I hadn’t seen a quagga there for weeks. I usually see them twice a day: up at the top of the fields in the morning and then right down by the bottom of Hospital Bend each evening. Cape Town traffic being what it is, there’s generally plenty of time to watch them as you don’t drive past.

Sadly, it sounds like it’s a permanent move:

Those animals have been moved to other herds – the best known one, a lovely stallion called Khumba, is now on a farm on the west coast where he will hopefully father the next generation of Rau quaggas.

While that means less fun when driving to and from town, especially for my daughter, it does sound like the best thing for the quaggas. And hey, maybe another family road trip is called for out to Groote Post (conveniently located on  the Groote Post wine farm), or maybe a visit to the Nuwejaars SMA (conveniently located all around the (perennial favourite) Black Oystercatcher wine farm)?

What’s not to like?

No more quaggas on the mountain, that’s what. 🙁

 

New Quagga Foal Is Very Cute

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This is very cute. And great news for the environment. I like the environment, but not to extremes.
That said, I’d never eat a quagga. Probably.

A new Rau quagga foal was born about 10 days ago in the Nuwejaars Wetlands Special Management Area to parents Susan and Freddie.

And here it is:

sma_1

 Awwwwww!

What’s a quagga, you ask? It looks like a a unfinished zebra. Wikipedia has all the answers:

The quagga (Equus quagga quagga) is an extinct subspecies of the plains zebra that lived in South Africa. It was long thought to be a distinct species, but recent genetic studies have shown it to be the southernmost subspecies of the plains zebra. It is considered particularly close to Burchell’s zebra. Its name is derived from the plains zebra’s call, which is heard like “kwa-ha-ha”.

This follows a typical naturalist trait of naming animals after the noises they make. They did ok with the Kittiwake, but they failed miserably with the Hadeda ibis, which should obviously be called the (ever so slightly less catchy) “Raap-Raap-Greer” ibis.
I can’t comment on the accuracy of the nomenclature of the quagga, because I’ve never heard one calling. Anyone?

A few others among you may have spotted that the quagga is extinct, which does make the news above seem a bit of a stretch, so let Wikipedia explain again:

After the very close relationship between the quagga and surviving zebras was discovered, the Quagga Project was started in 1986 by Reinhold Rau in South Africa to recreate the quagga by selective breeding from plains zebra stock, with the eventual aim of reintroducing them to the wild.

The founding population consisted of 19 individuals from Namibia and South Africa, chosen because they had reduced striping on the rear body and legs. The first foal of the project was born in 1988.
Once a sufficiently quagga-like population has been created, it will be released in the Western Cape. In early 2006, the third and fourth generation animals produced by the project were reported to look very much like the depictions and preserved specimens of the quagga. This type of selective breeding is also called breeding back.

The practice of breeding back is controversial, since the resulting zebras will only resemble the quaggas in external appearance, but genetically they will be different.

Three quagga in the Nuwejaars Wetlands Special Management Area feature in the Top 10 of Quagga specimens in the Quagga Project (go look at this website – really interesting). Among them is Freddie – in fact – he ranks as the number one Quagga specimen in SA. So this is big news. Nice one Freddie.

This is now on my list of things to go and do next time we’re down in Cape Agulhas, and it doesn’t hurt that the Nuwejaars Wetlands SMA is just down the road from these places.

Photo credit: Mick D’Alton