Sadly, many visitors consider ungulates to be uninteresting, and few have a less-exciting reputation than the deer and antelope (which, in the eyes of the average visitor, are all deer). These are the animals that the guests tend to stream by without much of a glance. Which is sad, really. For one thing, the hoofstock are almost always, without exception, "on" - awake, alert, in sight, and doing something... even if it's just grazing, or chewing a cud. Secondly, once you get to know them, you'll often find that they can have just as much character, as much charisma, and much spunk as any of the carnivores or primates.
To illustrate that fact, I'll tell the story of one gazelle I used to work with. His name has been changed, so let's just call him what most of the visitors did - Bambi.
Bambi was probably the
single most overlooked animal in the zoo. At the time I worked with him, he was
the only antelope in the entire zoo, though he carried the standard for his
tribe nobly. Barely two feet at the
shoulder, he had a plump little sandy body propped up with anorexic thin
legs. His graceful neck held up an
impish face, with a small flap of skin on the tip of his nose. When excited, this flap puffed up like a
balloon until it was the size of a tennis ball.
At the top of his hand was a tiny pair of neat, small sharp horns. Guests rarely saw him; when he was in the yard, he preferred to lie
on a dirt heap, where he blended in perfectly against the sand. He never called attention to himself, and he
never made a show for the guests.
Those
first glances were deceiving. Bambi was a
bad ass.
He may have been
tiny, but every ounce of Bambi petite frame was crammed with attitude, until
he was one fearless, dangerously confident little antelope. He delighted in racing along the fence line,
tormenting the cheetahs and the wolves that flanked his exhibit, practically chanting, “Neener, neener,
neener, you can’t catch me!”
Bambi was
under the impression that all things in this world fell under two categories –
food and sparing partners. After I'd been working with him for a few weeks, the zoo acquired two female oryx - massive antelopes, each the size of a small
horse, which the zoo decided to try and house with Bambi. The little gazelle instantly tried to herd and dominate the females. They promptly kicked his ass. After an unsuccessful attempt or two at introduction, it was decided that they would have to be rotated through the yard; oryx in the afternoon, gazelle in the morning. To be clear, the oryx never started the fights. Bambi just wouldn't leave them alone.
Refusing to
learn his lesson, the pint-sized gazelle would continue to challenge the oryx
(and, later, zebras) through the fencing of their holding yards. I had a hard time imaging Bambi backing down
to a lion, or an elephant, for that matter.
A log or a ball left in
his yard was seen as a deadly rival for supremacy of the yard, and was
immediately challenged. On more then one
occasion, we found him with an entire flake of timothy hay or alfalfa impaled
on his horns, shaking to get the wisps of hay from his eyes, and we knew that
he had successfully vanquished his enemy.
During the winter, for enrichment purposes (ours and his), we made Bambi a snowman (err… snow gazelle) to challenge. He slaughtered it in no time
I made a habit of not turning my back on Bambi while I was in the yard.
Bambi was quite elderly when I met him, hence the reason for his being alone. He was the last of his herd at the zoo, and the keepers felt he was too old to stress and ship to another facility for company. He decided to spite them, of course, by living damn near forever. Bambi has since gone to his eternal reward (whatever that may be for pugnacious little gazelles), but I still think of him often.
I was brand new in the field when I met Bambi, but he taught be a lesson which stayed with me throughout my career (two lessons, if you count "Never turn your back on an animal with horns). You can never predict which animals will make the biggest impression on you, and who you'll always treasure the memories of.
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