Aagaard's African Adventures by Finn Aagaard

Author:Finn Aagaard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Hunting
ISBN: 9781571572844
Publisher: Safari Press
Published: 2012-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

GREATER KUDU

CHAPTER 14

To many people, the greater kudu with its magnificent spiraling horns and its regal bearing is the most beautiful and desirable of all the glamorous African antelopes.

South-West Africa, otherwise known as Namibia, is the place for greater kudu. There they are among the commonest of the large antelopes, and are as much a nuisance and a danger to motorists as white-tailed deer are in central Texas, or so they say. In fact, though, kudu inhabit a far-flung range that extends from a little below the Congo River in Angola, through Namibia, South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe, on up the eastern half of the continent through Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia, and Ethiopia to the fringes of the Red Sea Hills, whence it hooks back through southern Sudan to parts of Chad and the Central African Republic—a grand, sweeping arc that traverses some seven thousand to eight thousand miles of Africa.

Although their numbers are sadly reduced in much of this range, and the guerrilla wars that ravage back and forth across Angola, Mozambique, Chad, and Ethiopia have no doubt taken their toll, kudu have been brought back in South Africa, and are still plentiful in Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Zambia, and relatively so in Tanzania.

They may be common in some areas, but no one has ever accused kudu of being commonplace. A mature greater kudu bull weighs some six hundred to seven hundred pounds and stands a good five feet at the shoulder, which is to say that it is not significantly smaller than the average Rocky Mountain bull elk. Kudu bulls are a blue-gray color with a white chevron between the eyes and six to ten vertical white stripes on their flanks. Their ears are large, while their hoofs are surprisingly small for the size of the beast, a not uncommon family characteristic among the tragelaphine or spiral-horned antelopes. (One notable exception is the swamp-dwelling, almost amphibious sitatunga, with its greatly elongated hoofs.)

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.