Zebras are iconic African animals that have captured the imagination of people around the world. With their distinctive black and white striped coats, zebras are a trademark symbol of the African savanna. However, while zebras have been present in Africa alongside humans for thousands of years, they have never been domesticated and put to work like horses and donkeys have been in other parts of the world. This has puzzled researchers and led to much speculation as to why zebras were never utilized in the same way by African societies.
The Nature of Zebras
Zebras are members of the equid family along with horses and donkeys, so it would seem natural that they could fulfill similar roles in Africa. However, the temperament and nature of zebras made them much more difficult animals to domesticate. Some key factors that help explain why zebras resisted domestication include:
- Zebras are more aggressive and unpredictable than horses and donkeys. They tend to be more flighty and nervous, making training them a challenge.
- Zebras have a powerful fight or flight instinct. They are prone to panic and reacting defensively when startled or feeling threatened.
- Zebras are highly social herd animals. Removing them from the herd to live among humans disrupts their social structures and causes significant stress.
- Zebras do not have a clear social hierarchy or dominant animals that lead the herd. This makes it difficult to train them to follow commands.
- Zebras are resistant to making vocal calls or signals, which are used in horse training.
- Zebras reach sexual maturity earlier and have a more complex and ritualized mating process than horses.
These ingrained natural tendencies of zebras made them difficult animals to tame, contain, train, breed, and manage. Even when captured in the wild, zebras maintain an untamable spirit and resist human direction. Their powerful natural instincts to live in family groups, follow their own lead, and flee from perceived danger make them unsuitable for domestication.
Failed Domestication Attempts
There have been some isolated incidents of humans attempting to domesticate zebras over the centuries in Africa. However, these attempts inevitably failed and were quickly abandoned.
Some examples include:
- European settlers in South Africa tried harnessing and training zebras to pull wagons in the 19th century. The zebras resisted and were impossible to control.
- Attempts were made in Ethiopia to ride zebras and integrate them into cavalry ranks. The skittish and aggressive nature of the zebras made this impractical.
- In the late 19th century, Lord Walter Rothschild spent years trying to train zebras to pull carriages in England. Despite considerable effort, the zebras never adapted to harnessing.
These attempts demonstrate that while it is possible to somewhat tame an individual zebra, even domesticating them over generations has not been achievable. The fundamental wild and unpredictable nature of zebras prevents them being bred and trained to serve human purposes.
Practicality of Other Livestock
Another significant reason that zebras were not domesticated is that Africans had access to more practical alternatives. Species such as cattle, goats, sheep, and chickens were much easier domesticated livestock to raise and manage.
Horses were also available in Africa by the 1600s and provided a more trainable animal for riding, pulling wagons, and other roles zebras may have served. With these accessible options, attempting to domesticate zebras was simply not worth the effort when other livestock provided everything needed.
Some advantages that made species like cattle preferable over attempting to domesticate zebras:
- Cattle can graze on grasses and do not require specialized or high maintenance diets.
- Cows and oxen are bulky and strong, able to pull heavy loads.
- Cattle produce nutritious meat, milk, hides, and other products for human use.
- Cattle herd together easily and follow human direction without panic.
- Cattle breed readily in captivity allowing offspring to be raised and put to use.
With these practical alternatives fulfilling important roles in African communities, expending the significant effort required to domesticate zebras was an unnecessary endeavor.
Different Environment from Eurasia
Another factor that potentially contributed to zebras not being domesticated is the climate and environment of Africa. In Europe and Asia, horses were domesticated over approximately 6000 years beginning around 4000 BC. However, the hot and arid environment of northern Africa where zebras thrived best was less suitable for intense selective breeding programs.
The extensive grasslands, moderate climates, and availability of cereal grains in Eurasia allowed horse breeding to become highly sophisticated. Similar conditions did not exist in most areas of Africa suitable for zebras. This environmental factor may have made it more difficult to undertake the kind of intensive and long-term breeding that horse domestication required.
With the wild zebra population flourishing in Africa, there was also less incentive for humans to invest the considerable effort needed to develop domestic breeds compared to Eurasia. Capturing wild stock as needed was a simpler option.
Lack of Geographical Barriers
One theory holds that a key factor in successful mammal domestication was geographical barriers that contained animals and forced them into close contact with humans over generations. Ancient wild horses were contained in the steppes region of Eurasia by mountains, seas, and other natural barriers. This facilitated their gradual domestication over time.
Zebras faced no similar geographical restrictions in Africa that might have brought them consistently into early human settlements. When humans likely first contemplated domesticating zebras thousands of years ago, zebras had access to enormous unfenced and unsettled lands providing abundant wild resources. This allowed them to remain independent of human management.
Without being fenced in, zebras were free to continue migrating, foraging, and living as they always had rather than being corralled into close human contact. This freedom of movement meant domestication efforts never had opportunity to progress.
Lack of Persistent Effort
The domestication of wild horses in Eurasia took place over thousands of years with generations of selective breeding transforming wild stock into the domesticated breeds we know today. This persistent effort was crucial to the process.
In contrast, domestication attempts with zebras in Africa were sporadic and short-lived. Captured zebras were simply too wild and unpredictable, causing people to quickly give up on domestic breeding programs.
If ancient Africans had devoted centuries of selective breeding to zebras like Eurasian cultures did with horses, perhaps more progress toward domestication might have occurred. But without that persistent multigenerational effort, zebras retained their wild traits. The lack of vigorous long-term domestication attempts meant zebras never underwent the genetic changes needed to create docile working breeds.
Cultural and Religious Significance
Another potential factor is that zebras held various cultural, symbolic, and even sacred significance among many African societies. Evidence suggests zebras were admired for their beauty and freedom, used as totemic symbols, and featured in origin stories of some groups. As a result, zebras may have been viewed as animals to be honored and respected, not controlled and exploited.
This reverence for zebras in their natural state may have discouraged attempts to corral and tame them. If zebras held important ceremonial or spiritual roles associated with their wildness, altering their nature through domestication may have been seen as taboo or undesirable.
In contrast, horses appear to have had little sacred or ceremonial status among the Eurasian cultures that first domesticated them. This enabled pragmatic efforts to breed and train horses to suit human purposes without any cultural reservations.
Lower Economic Value
Finally, another plausible factor in zebras not being domesticated is that they offered less economic incentive to take on the daunting task. Horses became immensely valuable as transportation, warfare, farming, and trade expanded in Eurasia. This gave impetus for the resource-intensive process of breeding wild horses into domesticated livestock.
Zebras in Africa did not present the same lucrative payoff. Oxen pulled plows and wagons, donkeys served as pack animals, camels traversed the deserts, and waterways provided key transportation networks in Africa. With these needs already met, putting in the effort to domesticate zebras offered little obvious reward or economic rationale.
Conclusion
While no single explanation fully accounts for why Africans never successfully domesticated zebras, the combination of factors may have tipped the scales against it. Zebras’ inherent nature made them resistant captives. Other livestock and transportation animals fulfilled key needs. Geographic and climatic conditions, lack of persistent breeding efforts, cultural perceptions, and limited economic justification also likely worked against zebra domestication.
Zebras continue to roam Africa today much as they have for millennia, untamable symbols of the continent’s exotic wildlife. Their striking natural beauty and freedom are likely what spared them from attempted domestication in the first place. Though they have never been harnessed to plow or wagon, zebras retain an iconic wildness and dignity that is central to their place in the African landscape. For this, we may be thankful that zebras were never made to bear the yoke and whip, but instead remained untamed denizens of the African wilds.
| Factor | Description |
|---|---|
| Zebra Nature | More aggressive, unpredictable, flighty, and stressful in captivity than horses |
| Failed Attempts | Sporadic domestication efforts met with little success |
| Practicality of Other Livestock | Cattle, goats, sheep, and chickens more easily raised and productive |
| Different Environment | Africa’s arid climate less suitable for intense breeding programs |
| Lack of Geographical Barriers | Zebras roamed freely rather than being confined with humans |
| Lack of Persistent Effort | No prolonged, generational breeding attempted like with Eurasian horses |
| Cultural Significance | Zebras revered in some societies, altering nature through domestication seen negatively |
| Lower Economic Value | Less incentive to domesticate with oxen, donkeys, camels already serving needs |
References
[1] Rubenstein, D. I. (2011). Surviving through obligate and facultative mutualism. In The Zebra’s Stripes (pp. 284-309). Springer, Dordrecht.
[2] Klingel, H. (1998). Observations on social organization and behaviour of African and Asiatic Wild Asses (Equus africanus and Equus hemionus). Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 60(2-3), 103-113.
[3] Penzhorn, B. L. (1984). A long-term study of social organisation and behaviour of Cape mountain zebras Equus zebra zebra. Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie, 64(2), 97-146.
[4] Grubb, P. (2005). Order Perissodactyla. In D. E. Wilson and D. M. Reeder (Eds.), Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (pp. 630-636). Johns Hopkins University Press.
[5] Janis, C. (2008). An evolutionary history of browsing and grazing ungulates. In I. J. Gordon & H. H. T. Prins (Eds.), The Ecology of Browsing and Grazing (pp. 21-45). Springer.