SURVIVE LIKE AN IMPALA; AN ELEGANT SAVANNA ANTELOPE

Elegant male Impala with erect ears and sharp pointed horns posing for the camera

Impala are beautiful medium sized antelopes living in big herds in eastern southern African savannah grasslandand woodland. Adult males have horns that look quite large for their averagely 35-65kgs bodies while females averagely 30-48kgs and infants are hornless. Physically strong adult males form large territories demarcated with urine and faeces on prominent structures like trees, anthills, tree stumps. Here they live in big herds with other meek adult males, females and their infants. The territories are jealously guarded with heavy battles against intruders and dominance by another male in power struggle. Quite often the loser in the battle joins nearby females or juveniles herds with slightly less members.

The African wildernessconditions are hard with harsh challenges to all mammals from the moment they are born with predators lurking nearby to mount attacks for their own survival and unfavourable weather conditions like floods and drought. Pregnant impalas have special survival technique in which they can withhold giving birth till the climatic conditions are favourable for their own survival and the young ones. Most often they give birth at end rain season for there will be plenty of pasture to feed on and nourish the young one and warm temperatures for the young one. Big numbers of age mate infants are a common sight in impala herds on tour to Uganda's savannah grassland national parks.  On the dot of birth, the young impala starts staggering on its legs and in a few hours is able to move from one place to another, able to suckle and discern unique barks and snorts from the mother alerting of safety or warning alerts to take cover under vegetation. In a few days he is able to chew up on soft grass and fend on its own.

Herd of female Impalas with erect ears (radars) and wide open eyes to detect threat posed by tourists

On safaris to Uganda you encounter Impalas living in herds which reduce misfortunes of predator attacks on individual and spread chances of survival to every member in the herd. Each individual’s survival depends on whole herd’s alertness with high senses of hearing to discern the direction and estimate the distance the threat is in, accurate sense of sight with coloured vision to identify the threats, estimate nearest distance in between them and devise next course of action and high sense of smell to detect body odour of predators and even estimate the time the predator was around particular spots. At the zero hour of predator attacks the whole herd of impalas scatters in different directions in zig zag formation to confuse the enemy spot weak individuals. They are speedy antelopes quite often racing at more than 50km/hr with agility to leap over obstacles 10m long and 3m high. When cornered the impala have strong legs with which they kick the enemy and their sharp pointed hooves (and horns for males) quite often tear into, injure and disable the enemy giving some impalas another shot at life. Remember the law of the jungle? Survival for the Fittest. Only the injured, sick, pregnant, senile, infants and unfortunate ones become victims of the game. Otherwise a healthy Impala is no match to even the strongest predators.