In the mountains of the grassy Karoo lies one of South Africa’s most scenic national parks – the Mountain Zebra National Park, named for the animals it conserves.
A Beautiful Situation
The Mountain Zebra National Park lies cupped in the hollows of the glowing sandstone massifs of the Bankberg Mountains. River valleys are dense with thorny acacia trees and the high grassy plateaux-like Rooiplaat offer easy game viewing against the sheer drama of mountain backdrops.
The park is only 12 km from Cradock, a historic, well-treed town on the edge of the Great Karoo. It’s also a pleasant two and half hour drive from the coastal town of Port Elizabeth.
It is a location once the haunt of colourful characters.
Texas Jack and Mexican Bill
There is an intriguing photograph dating back to 1903, showing a baboon seated on the rump of a sullen mountain zebra in the town of Port Elizabeth.
It forms part of the mountain zebra’s decidedly non-ecological history. A man known only as Texas Jack came looking for unconventional steeds for his circus stars in 1903, and what better than a zebra? American cowboys chased mountain zebras up and down the valleys that would later become the national park. Several were captured – locals gathered with picnic baskets to watch the spectacle.
Zebra Rodeo
But the most dramatic incident came later when one of the circus riders, Mexican Bill, accepted a bet that he could ride a wild zebra.
Paul Michau, whose farm now forms an integral part of the park reports that Mexican Bill lassoed one of the untamed zebras, leapt down from his horse’s back, threw a saddle over the zebra ‘and with great intrepidity’, rode down the mountain side to the homestead.
It was, in Michau’s words, ‘a feat I would never have deemed possible had I not myself witnessed it’.
Plucked From the Brink
By the mid-1930s, it seemed inevitable that the handsome Cape mountain zebra was about to follow the quagga to extinction. In the fight for grazing between stock farmers and zebras in the arid, mountainous Cape Midlands, the cows and sheep were winning.
But a glimmer of hope remained. Some farmers in the Cradock district, the mountain zebra’s last stronghold, had developed a fondness for the beasts. In 1937, conservation authorities captured a small herd of six animals on Paul Michau’s farm Doornhoek, and 1 712 hectares were set aside to form the seed area of a national park.
Flirting with Failure
Right at the outset, failure seemed inevitable. The herd consisted of five males and one female, and by 1950, all had died except for two old males. Once again, a local farmer came to the rescue, this time HL Lombard of the neighbouring farm Waterval who donated 11 mountain zebras in exchange for blesbok.
Since then, the numbers of mountain zebras have slowly risen. So successful that over 1 000 have been translocated to other conservation areas and private parks to ensure their survival.
Growing the Park
The Mountain Zebra National Park was once just seen as a ‘species park’. As a result, its size grew slowly, tripling between 1937 and 1996 to around 6 500 hectares.
But then its importance as a possible sanctuary for other endangered animals became clear. In the late 1990s, British wildlife artist David Shepherd donated paintings worth more than R1 million so the park could be expanded.
South African National Parks (SANParks) matched his donation, plus those of others, and bought nine farms. The Mountain Zebra National Park now sprawls over more than 28 000 hectares.
A Magical Mix
Four ecosystems meet within the park – grassland, Nama Karoo, thicket and savanna – allowing for an unusual mix of animals and plants.
In 1998, endangered black rhino were introduced and they, along with other recent introductions like Cape buffalo and gemsbok, are thriving. Besides these and mountain zebras, expect to see eland (the largest antelope in Africa), springbok, red hartebeest, black wildebeest and kudu.
Spotted Cats Arrive
The predator population was recently boosted by the introduction of four cheetah – two males, captive bred at De Wildt Cheetah and Wildlife Trust, and two young females from nearby Samara Game Reserve.
Other predators are mostly nocturnal, sometimes seen on night drives: caracal, wild cat and black-footed cat, termite-eating aardwolf, Cape fox and bat-eared fox.
By day, look up for sightings of raptors – pale chanting goshawks, martial eagles, Verreaux’s eagles and secretary birds, trailing their long elegant legs over the mountain grasslands.
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