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Africa

Africa. No continent on earth today has such spectacular wildlife. At its heart, lies a vast tropical forest. Over a million and half square kilometres of wilderness, much of it still unexplored even now. There are more species of animals and plants in these jungles than anywhere else on the continent. But even in this land of plenty, wildlife now faces major challenges. AFRICA.

The forests of Africa coast contain over 1,500 species of plant, but some are very difficult to get at even one of the most intelligent of animals. Chimpanzees. The elders in this group know where to find the most nutritious food and how to extract it. But if they are survive to adulthood, the youngsters must learn these skills from their parents. This young female is five years old. Old enough to be given an important lesson. And this is her teacher, her mother. The lesson is how to crack a nut. Using tools like this is so complex that is has only been mastered by a handful of chimpanzee communities. This is a skill that has been practiced by chimps for several thousand years. Time to try for herself. She needs to find a better tool. Small rocks just don’t have the clout. And larger ones are too cumbersome. Wood is both light and strong but not strong enough. Back to teacher. It may take a young chimp up to a decade to perfect the skills it needs fur nut-cracking. But she’s already mastered one thing. When her fingers can’t reach the nut inside, she strips down a branch to sizes and make herself a spoon. She’ll learn to use many tools in her life. And eventually she’ll share this knowledge with youngsters of her own enabling them to harvest the riches of their rainforest home.

The sheer abundance of life in the rainforests is rivalled by that on the Eastern side of the continent. The Great Rift Valley runs six and a half thousand kilometers down the length of Africa. It developed some 30 million years ago when a giant plume of molten rock pushing up from the depths cracked the earth’s crust apart. Fresh water began to accumulate on the floor of this rift and a chain of lakes developed. These lakes are now one of the richest freshwater habitats to be found anywhere.

One single family of fish here-the cichlids has evolved into more than fifteen hundred different species. This might look like a paradise, but competition between these cichlid species is intense. This crowed world is a dangerous one. Baby fish, after all, make a tasty meal. So many cichlid mothers have developed a very effective way of keeping their offspring safe. They use their mouth as a mobile nursey. It’s a safe heaven where the fry can stay until danger has passed. When the coast clear, she releases them. This kind of behavior starts when the cichlid female picks up her newly-laid eggs and holds them in her mouth to keep them safe. During spawning, her mate flashes his yellow tail spots to encourage her to keep laying. As each batch of eggs emerges she scoops them up. But this couple are being watched by Cuckoo Catfish. They work as a gang and devour as many cichlid eggs as they can find. Then in the middle of all this activity, one of the catfish also spawns. The cichlid mother collects every egg she can see. Now, by herself, she must wait while the eggs in her mouth develop. It will take three weeks. She doesn’t eat throughout that entire time. But 18 days later, something is not right. The female blows out her young before they are fully ready to emerge. And they are followed by young Cuckoo Catfish. Three times the size of her own babies. She may have as many as six of them in her mouth. And now they begin to eat the cichlid babies. The female cichlid treats the baby catfish as if they were hers. They are truly cuckoos among fish.

The forces that created the Great Rift Valley continue to shape Africa’s landscape even today. At weak spots in the earth’s crust, molten rock continues to erupt. There are some 200 volcanoes on the continent. Many of them active. They may bring destruction but also eventually fertility.

This is Ol Doinyo Lengai. For the past four hundred thousand years, ash from this great volcano has fallen on the surrounding savannahs of the Serengeti and greatly enriched them. This is the best grazing on the continent. On it live the world’s largest herds of migrating animals. And they, in turn, support predators. Here in Kenya, cheetahs have formed an unusual alliance. These swiftest of cats usually hunt in groups of two or three. But this team of five is one of the largest ever recorded. Two sets of brothers and a lead male. They have now lives and hunted together for almost 3 years. By teaming up, they can hold the best territory in the area. But even so, they have 5 mouths to feed. Every hunt is very important. They haven’t eaten for 3 days. To make a kill, they must get within 30 metres of their quarry without being detected. Thick cover that will help them. Topi-nearly 3 times of their size and quite strong enough to fight off a lion, let alone a single cheetah. Now out in the open, every step the cheetahs take increases the chance of success. The herd scatter and the team splits up. But they didn’t get close enough. They switch targets to zebra. Everyone now knows that they’re here. They must devise a different approach. All eyes are on the brothers. Out in the open, they seem to be no threat. But the lead male is missing. The brothers are decoys. The trap is set. The other four now join the lead male. Under the combined weight of five cheetahs, death comes quickly.

Today, Africa’s savannahs support large herds of big game than anywhere else in the world. And they, one way or another provide food for all kinds of smaller creatures. An oxpecker. A resourced little bird with an unusual diet. Fleas, ticks and even dandruff are food as far as they are concerned. Both parties benefit. The oxpecker gets a good meal and the host is cleaned in those places they could never reach for itself. Each bird, every day, collects hundreds of ticks and thousands of insect larvae. But some oxpeckers go for rather risker meals. Hippopotamus are highly territorial and very aggressive. So oxpeckers tackling them must always be on their guard. But there is much to be gained. Blood is the most nutritious meals of all. Pecking ensures that cuts remain open and bloods keeps flowing. And an oxpecker, once it has found an open wound will stay alongside it, no matter how much that irritates its host. The reward? An endless supply of food whatever the conditions.

Not all of Africa is rich and fertile. The third of the continent is desert. This is the Namib, in the South West. At its heart, a disused diamond mine that was abandoned nearly 70 years ago. But it still has one inhabitant. A desert specialist. And one of Africa’s rarest predators. The Brown Hyena. This ghost town is her home. Its ruins give her valuable protection from the elements. She has been here for 15 years. She’s already reared nine generations of cubs. These two youngsters have reached a critical stage in their lives. They are four months old and now they need regular solid food. But there is nothing edible in these ruins. So their mother has to look elsewhere and may leave them for several days on end. Brown Hyenas may walk over 30 kilometres a day in search of food. This is some of the most hostile country on the planet. Temperatures reach a blistering 50 degrees Celsius. Strong winds blow incessantly. Hyenas from all over the Namib head for there the sand dunes meet the sea. Somewhere along this seemingly barren stretch of sand, there is food in great quantity. Cape Fur Seals. There are around ten thousand of them here. Adult seals are large and strong. But their pups are either. The youngsters are closely guarded by their mothers. A hyena, however, knows to be patient. Sooner or later, seal mothers must return to the ocean to cool off. A single seal pup could feed a hyena and her family for days. But finding food is only half the battle. It now has to be carried back. A jackal is here too. And it’s not alone. If a hyena loses her kill, she’ll have nothing with which to feed her cubs. The jackals won’t follow her very far from the coast. It’s too hot for them in the desert interior. Only by making these long journeys can brown hyenas manage to survive in the middle of the Namib. But seldom desert animals seldom move far. The Kalahari Desert. Here food is more plentiful, but it’s hidden. A pangolin. She can collect food that others can’t reach. A keen sense of smell enables her to detect the presence of ants and termites in their nests beneath the sand. Her sticky tongue, some 30 centimetres long enables her to collect them from deep underground. And she is being carefully watched. The drier it gets, the deeper the termites live. Many are way beyond the reach of even a pangolin, but not of an aardvark. It’s the world’s largest burrowing animal. Its sense of smell is extremely acute. Shovel-like claws and power legs enable it to dig down to depths of five or six metres. A full-grown aardvark needs to eat about 50,000 termites every day. Termites are highly nutritious and full of moisture. And they can be collected here year round. Aardvark are usually nocturnal. But the fact that this one is foraging in daylight is a sign that food is scarce. Recent droughts in the Kalahari have led to low termites numbers, and as a consequence aardvarks here are close to starvation.

Changes in the world’s climate are affecting many of Africa’s animals. It’s predicted that in the next century, Southern Africa will warm twice as much as the global average. The future will be bleak for those that cannot adapt fast enough.

In Zimbabwe, it hasn’t rained in six months. During a drought, food becomes harder and harder to find. Apple-ring acacias produce pods that are full of protein. But mostly on their higher branches. Six metres up, they are out of reach even for the continent’s largest animals. This bull elephant needs to eat about 90 kilograms of vegetation every day. He’s worked out a remarkable way of surviving of these lean times. But it requires great physical strength. Only a handful of bulls have mastered the skill. He weights over 5 tonnes. This is a truly monumental effort. Those around him benefit too. Elephants have used their great intelligence to help them survive Africa’s driest times for millennia. But today, they face an even greater threat. It’s thought that as many as 20 million elephants once roamed the continent, but many of them have been killed for their tusks. Their ivory used for entirely ornamental purposes. Now, just 350,000 elephants remain. These stockpiles of confiscated tusks represent half of the elephants killed on the continent in just one year.

But of all Africa’s remaining wildlife, it is the rhinoceros that has been most affected by poaching. In the far east, its horn is used as traditional medicine. All of Africa’s rhinos are now under threat. But for one sub-species, it’s likely to be already too late. The northern White rhinoceros is facing extinction. Scientists are working on a solution, but no male now survives, so natural breeding is impossible. These two females are the last of their kind. When they die, an entire subspecies that inhabited the earth for millions of years will have disappeared forever.

Right across Africa, human being are having a devastating impact on all wildlife. Cheetah numbers are decreasing year on year. Today, there are fewer than 8,000 left on the continent. The global demand for pangolin scales for use in traditional medicine has now make them the most trafficked animal on the planet. And Western chimpanzees are so threatened by the loss of their habitat, they are now critically endangered. In this female’s lifetime, three-quarters of the forests in the Ivory Coast has been felled for plantations. Deforestation and not only in Africa continues on an enormous scale. 26 million hectares of forest are cut down each year to make way for agriculture and industry. An area forest the size of the football field is disappearing every second. Climate change is affecting global weather patterns. Rainfall is increasingly unpredictable. Average temperature are soaring all over the globe. Extreme weather is now affecting wildlife on all seven of the plant’s continents.

Today scientists tell us that we are at the start of a master extinction and one that is being caused by human activity. Over a million species could be wiped out, many within the next few decades. But with help, even the most vulnerable wildlife populations can still recover. In Africa’s Virunga Nation Park, an intensive conservation program for the mountain gorilla has raised their numbers above 1,000 for the first time since records began. And in Antarctic, the international ban on whaling has meant that the great whales have returned to the Southern Ocean in numbers not seen for a century. So we can improve things if we determine to do so. This is a crucial moment in time. The decisions we take now will influence the future of animals, humanity and indeed all life on earth.

FINALLY !!! FINISHED !!!

Dec 19 2019

Version 1

By. MZL

Email：muzl0531@163.com