“For ten days now we have been tracking large kudu antelope, and I have never seen an adult male. There were only three days left, because from the south, from Rhodesia, the rains were coming, and in order not to get stuck here, we had to get at least as far as Khandeni before they started. Ernest Hemingway. "Green Hills of Africa"
Shaking in the Cruiser climbing up the broken serpentine, the same thoughts overcame me ... The short hunt was already nearing its end. Unlike old Ham, I had a day less in reserve, and I never had time to really even see this beautiful, majestic animal. Kudu, one of the largest antelopes in Africa, inferior in size only to the massive, weighing a ton, eland, has always been a desirable trophy for the hunter. A graceful head with a thin white line connecting the eyes, and the same white spot near the lips, is crowned with huge, one meter long, dark sharp horns twisted in a spiral. A muscular neck, fringed with white strands of hair almost to the very feet, merges into a sinewy body, hidden under a short-haired gray skin. A long white stripe, originating from the brown mane on the steep withers of the beast, like a smear of paint, runs along the entire ridge, flowing uneven white smudges along the lean sides. The watchful thin legs of an antelope are always ready to take their master away from danger in a split second with a swift jump. Yes, this is the beast that every hunter dreams of...
Quietly purring diesel engine, the jeep waddled awkwardly over the heaps of boulders that protruded from the road eroded by heavy rains. Jason, clinging to the steering wheel of the Toyota in an endless shaking with both hands, stubbornly taxied forward. We overcame another steep climb and, turning around the corner, began to storm the next one ... With apprehension, I looked sideways out of the window at the gorge running down in stone screes. No barriers or restrictions.
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Pickup famously maneuvered between deep potholes in some half a meter from the abyss. Having estimated that if something happened, I would not even have time to open the door before the car jumped into the abyss, I tried not to think about the bad, switching my attention to the nature around. And she was truly wonderful! The higher we climbed up the wide ridge of mountains that divided the bush stretching for kilometers around into two halves, the more majestic the boundless Eastern Cape of South Africa appeared before us! The green valleys cut up by hills with occasional mirrors of ponds were still slightly covered by a white blanket of fog receding under the rays of the recently risen sun.
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Sunny, dewy pastures with sparse spreading trees alternated with dense thickets of undersized fynbos. The azure blue of the sky with cumulus clouds slowly floating across it was clear and transparent.
Suddenly I was distracted by some movement ahead. Behind the crest of the hill, attracted by the noise of the cars, several blesbucks, the most common breed of antelope in the bush, slowly emerged. The animals were slightly larger than the European roe deer, brown, with a red tint, with white stockings on the legs and belly of the same color. Staring at us with their angular muzzles with a large frontal white mark, stretching from the very nose to the base of small horns spread out with a fork, these antelopes, not shining with quick wits, let us in about eighty meters.
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Finally, having decided that it was time to save themselves, they rushed about on the slope, not orienting in any way in which direction to run, and only when we caught up with them at a distance of already fifty meters, the animals, bending their massive heads to the ground, broke into a swift quarry . Having run back to the next hill, they slowed down, now bobbing their heads amusingly, now crouching deeply on their hind legs - like a child's rocking horse. Soon the antelopes stopped at the top and looked back at us. Now they were no more than a hundred and fifty meters away - the distance of a confident shot from a rifle. “Stupid animals (stupid animals),” Jason concluded, shaking his head, and pressed the gas pedal harder.
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Smiling, I remembered my first African trophy, which, often, for many hunters, was the blesbock.
It happened on the first day of the hunt: quietly climbing the eel, behind which the next ridge of hills began through an overgrown log, we hid behind the maquis bushes and spent a long time pecking the surroundings with binoculars in search of kudu. But they were nowhere to be found, only a herd of sand-coloured impalas and black-and-white zebras grazing peacefully in the bushes nearby. We turned back to the car, making a small circle through a valley heavily overgrown with low trees. Suddenly Zolo pulled us back, pointing to an island of acacias. Looking closer, Jason and I saw a good male blesbuck next to the bushes, nibbling on the sparse vegetation on the scorched slope. It was decided to try to take it. Stepping back a little, we went down to the brook murmuring in the ravine in order to accurately go into the wind. Bending down, cautiously moved towards the beast. According to our calculations, it was already not far from the bull when some movement began in the bushes about a hundred meters from us, and soon several antelopes, also blesbucks, ran out from there, cautiously looking around.
Pretending to be bizarre trees, we both walked and froze. Antelopes, flashing white-brown spots among the heather thickets, quickly dissolved in the bush. The last of them stopped in the gap and looked at us. Whispering that this bull was no worse than the one we hid, Jason deftly spread his tripod with a precise movement ... In the morning silence, a shot dryly cracked and the blesbuck, knocked down by a bullet, collapsed to the ground.
Black wildebeest, rare for these places, or as they are also called "African clowns", comically bucking with a white panicle of their tail, spun in place for a long time, shaking their maned head with short, steeply curved horns. Having finished their strange dance, they joined a herd of blesbucks rushing past at breakneck speed - ordinary brown and completely white. And all this motley crowd flowed in an endless stream from one hill to another, stopping briefly to look back at the troublemakers of their peace ...
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After seeing enough of the antelopes, we passed the plateau and rolled down to the foot of the hills, where, in a ravine near a small pond, Jason hoped to catch the kudu who came to drink. The car was prudently left a kilometer from the intended hunting ground. There was practically no wind, and only a cloud of talcum powder emitted from the smoker, floating lazily in the air, told us the right direction for the approach. Cautiously stepping along the dry wood that spread along the ground and scatterings of small stones crunching underfoot, we slowly moved forward. In the morning silence, interrupted only by the rare whistling of birds, each unsuccessful step echoed through the district. At such moments, everything inside shuddered, shrank, and I had to think three times which is better. next step put your foot up so as not to make noise again. And only the brightly shining sun in the back was our helper today. Soon, from Jason's emotional gestures, every now and then reminding me to be extremely careful, I guessed that we were already close to the goal. Behind a low sandy knoll, overgrown with stocky, squat cacti, a log was guessed, leaving on the other side with a sloping ridge upwards. Apparently, somewhere below us was our pond ... Suddenly, to the left, from the valley emerging from the arm of the ravine, there was a hoarse, abrupt barking of baboons. We stopped, wondering if the monkeys were chirping, sorting things out among themselves, or raised the alarm when they noticed us. We all knew that these sounds would alert or even go into the bush, perhaps those who were now at the kudu watering hole. Cursing “baboons” through our teeth, we waited five minutes. Then slowly, step by step, they approached the embankment and, stretching their necks, looked down ...
Our slope descended in dense erica bushes, coming close to a small pond with dirty, muddy water. The opposite open sandy shore of the pond was all dotted with antelope tracks, but the animals themselves were not visible nearby.
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We took up our binoculars and began scrupulously searching yard after yard. Five, ten minutes - no one. It seemed that all life in the area had died out, and this was in such striking contrast with the zoo that we saw on the top of the mountain ... I remembered Jason's recent words when another attempt to get kudu failed: “This antelope is the most cautious and cunning of all that I have seen . Dissolving like a ghost at the slightest sign of danger. Getting it is a real “challenge” (call) for the hunter.” Taking a deep breath, he turned towards the car. But then Zolo, still looking at the bush through his massive binoculars, excitedly clicked something on his scythe.
PH looked in the same direction as the tracker, and the sour expression on his face was replaced by a cheerful smile. I grabbed my Leupold too. To the right of the pond, on the opposite slope, in the shade of stunted trees, four kudu females were grazing! Long-legged, with white stripes on gray sides, with small heads on high necks. The antelopes, plucking the leaves from the bushes and nibbling the grass, slowly wandered up along the ravine. “The bull, the good bull, is following them,” Jason whispered excitedly. But no matter how much I peered, I could not find a kudu. "Where is he, Jason?" “Dmitry, I don’t see him now either, he is somewhere there, in the dense thickets below, following the females. From this place we will no longer be able to take him, we must quickly go to the right in order to be between him and the cows. Bending down, we dived over the hillock and, under its cover, silently shifted to the right by a hundred meters. Again looking out from behind the hillock, they spent a long time pecking the lowland with binoculars. There are females - they graze almost, on the contrary, on an open lawn. But the bull is nowhere to be seen. Oh, it's a pity we can't see the bottom of the ravine from our position, because a cautious animal can pass right there! Noticing a large acacia bush in front, successfully covering us from antelopes, we, bent over in three deaths, crawled almost on all fours to him. Now there were no more than seventy meters left to the opposite slope, and as in the palm of your hand you could see a brook winding a snake along the bottom of the ravine. Now the main thing is not to miss the kudu and pray that he does not turn back! Jason set up the tripod, and, turning the sight to the minimum, I removed the hard drive from the fuse ...
In an ambush, time always stretches infinitely slowly ... The sun, having risen high into the sky, was already hot. It became hot in the jacket, which was still dressed in the morning chill, but it was no longer possible to take it off. Standing still with a carbine in my shoulder, I shot through all the clearings, clearings, windows between the trees, where I could appear kudu. But he fell through the ground. Our females have gone far up. A little more, and they will climb the hill, from where they will have a perfect view of us. Where, where are you, where are you?! Where are you going?!
The eye caught a slight stirring of foliage in the dense crown of a sprawling tree on the other side of the ravine. Grabbing this fleeting movement, I clung to the eyepiece of the scope. Horns! Long spiraled, with thick, rough bases! Kudu! My heart was beating wildly in my chest from the excitement! I furtively pointed to Jason in the direction of the trees. “Yes, yes, this is our bull!” - PH confirmed in a confused whisper. The horns moved, floated over the bushes, and, reaching for an acacia branch, a gray kudu head with a white stripe on the bridge of its nose emerged from the thickets. The bull feasted on juicy green leaves, deftly flowing around the sharp white spines with his tongue.
I aimed at the only place that was deadly for the beast that I could see - where the head meets the neck. Jason crouched down, putting his shoulder under my right elbow, and the cross of the sight, which had previously been floating on the gray skin of kudu, froze on the target, as if drawn on it. It was comfortable to shoot. I took a deep breath, but as soon as my finger began to press the trigger, the kudu, having finished picking leaves from one branch, turned to another. I took aim again, but the bull, shaking its head, shifted a little to the side, and the small piece of its neck, which I had been able to see earlier, disappeared behind the intricacies of the branches. This went on for five minutes. I tried in vain to catch the moment when the kudu's neck, emerging from behind a branch, freezes while its owner chews the leaves, but I could not do it. Gradually, I began to get tired of the constant state of maximum concentration - having gathered my nerves, breathing, all my shooting training into a fist, I had to squeeze out a quick, accurate shot as soon as the right moment turned up. And I started to lose confidence if I could take that shot. Too high a price was at stake: as soon as the bullet lay a few centimeters to the side, a miss would be guaranteed, or, even worse, a wounded wound ... throat, and a trickle of sweat ran down his cheek ...
Apparently having eaten, kudu moved into the shade of trees. Now I couldn't even see his head. Only long dark horns, like antennae, protruded from the undergrowth. Fifteen minutes passed in an agonizing wait ... We could not do anything: neither shoot nor try to approach - the beast was too close to us. But I had already seen the denouement of this hunt: the females who had climbed the hill, huddled together, were attentively watching us. One of them anxiously moved her ears and ran down the slope. The others, after a moment's hesitation, followed suit. The stones, touched by the hooves of the antelopes, rolled, thundered loudly, falling from the slope into the ravine. The kudu's horns rose from the bushes and turned in that direction. The bull was worried.
Stopping for a while, his horns, furrowing the green-yellow sea of the bush, turned towards the bottom of the ravine, heavily overgrown with tall shrubs. “Well, that's all,” I thought, seeing the elusive trophy through the scope. Kudu has sensed danger and is now retreating. A cunning beast, wise over the years, will never come out onto an open slope, but will quietly leave in the strongest place, without showing itself. Episodes of past unsuccessful hunts flashed before me, to which one more was to be added today. I was already beginning to feel that the kudu was surrounded by some kind of invisible aura of invulnerability, that our attempts to steal it were a waste of time, a futile exercise doomed to failure in advance. And that, perhaps, I, just me, are not at all destined to get into this beast that never makes mistakes ...
But he did it anyway! Being too lazy to go down to the very bottom of the ravine littered with chapyzhnik, in order to go unnoticed for sure, the bull slowly swam out into a small gap between the trees on a steep sandy slope. How majestic and beautiful he was! Turning his back to me, he stopped and glanced up at the hill where the females had run a few minutes before. Without thinking, I fired quickly. Kudu jumped up and with a loud crash, breaking the bushes, rushed straight up the slope. Again I saw only the tops of its horns flickering among the trees. But then they slowed down, stopped, staggered .. and collapsed into the bush. A ringing silence hung in the air, in which I heard only the booming beat of my heart. Still holding on possible ways retreat of the antelope, I knew that the hunt was over.
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These antelopes stand out among other antelopes that live on the African continent with their bright, memorable appearance.
Large kudu are large animals with a majestic appearance, whose height at the shoulders reaches one and a half meters, and their weight is more than three hundred kilograms. They are one of the largest antelopes in the world.
The habitat of large kudu is the central and eastern territories of Africa. They prefer to settle in savannahs, on plains covered with shrubs, in forests, in rare cases on deserted hillsides. In general, they choose a place to live depending on the season, for example, with the onset of a drought, they move to the banks of rivers. Their most favorite place is the thickets of bushes, which help them hide from predators, which are many in these places.
Greater kudu have gray-brown coats, white stripes on the sides, white markings on the cheeks, and diagonal stripes called chevrons running between the eyes. In males, the coat is darker with a gray tint, while in young animals and females it is colored beige, which allows them to remain more invisible against the background of vegetation.
Kudu are the owners of exquisite horns. The real decoration of the males of large kudu are their large helical horns. They don't shed them like deer and live with the same ones all their lives. In adult males, the horns have two and a half turns. Moreover, their horns twist strictly in accordance with the schedule: they appear in the first year of life, by the time the male turns two years old, they make one revolution. And they are finally formed by the age of six of the animal. One horn of a large kudu, if stretched out in a straight line, will be about two meters long.
Kudu horns are a means of self-defense. Such impressive antlers are the great kudu's weapon against predators and for sorting out relations with other males in the fight for females during the mating season. But sometimes battles between males can end quite badly: they can grapple too tightly with their horns, which they can no longer disengage. Unfortunately, both animals die in such cases. And in all other situations, the horns do not interfere in any way with large kudas, so that they can easily and naturally move near trees, only by lifting their chin and pressing their horns to their backs.
The males of these antelopes live separately, and during the mating season they join the females, who, together with the cubs, live in small groups, including from three to ten heads. These groups spend most of their time among tall grass and bushes, hiding from predators. Their coloring perfectly helps them to camouflage so well that if the antelope is standing still, it is almost impossible to see it against the background of vegetation.
big kudu- Inhabitant of Africa. If the kudu senses danger, it freezes for a while and moves its large sensitive ears, after which it abruptly runs away, at the same time making a barking sound, which warns the other relatives of the danger. It should be noted that large kudu make the loudest sounds compared to other antelopes.
Listen to the voice of the markhorn antelope kudu
Another big kudu alarm is the whirling white tail. These antelopes jump beautifully, even their large physique does not interfere with this. They are able to jump over obstacles about three meters high. Large kudu have a peculiar habit - when leaving the chase, run some distance and stop to look around. This behavior can be fatal for the kudu.
- Class: Mammalia Linnaeus, 1758 = Mammals
- Infraclass: Eutheria, Placentalia Gill, 1872 = Placental, higher animals
- Superorder: Ungulata = Ungulates
- Order: Artiodactyla Owen, 1848= Artiodactyls, artiodactyls
- Suborder: Ruminantia Scopoli, 1777 = Ruminants
- Family: Bovidae (Cavicornia) Gray, 1821 = Bovids
- Genus: Tragelaphus Blainville, 1816 = Forest antelope
Greater Kudu - Tragelaphus strepsiceros - is distributed from Central and Eastern to South Africa. Kudu live in small groups, rarely alone on wooded hills. They feed on grass and tree leaves. In adults, the height at the withers is 1.3-1.5 m, the body length is up to 245 cm, and the weight is more than 300 kg. Females are smaller than males. Coloration is reddish-gray to bluish-gray with white stripes on the sides. The males of these antelopes are very beautiful. They have white, bright stripes stretching along their reddish-brown body, and their heads are decorated with long massive horns, curved in the form of a corkscrew - their length is on average 1 m (record - 1.8 m), females are hornless. On the underside of the neck from the throat to the belly there is a suspension of long hair and vertical white stripes on the sides.
KUDU BIG is a slender, large (up to 1.5 m high at the withers) antelope, of a delicate bluish or yellowish-gray color, with narrow white transverse stripes on the sides, with a small mane and a suspension of hard elongated hair on the throat. The main decoration of the large kudu is the horns, twisted in a wide free spiral and reaching more than 1.5 m in length. Females, like other members of the genus, do not have horns.
The huge range of this antelope covers East, South and partly Central Africa, but in most areas it is quite rare. In general, a large kudu is not one of those antelopes that can often be found.
He prefers hilly and mountainous terrain with rocky soil, but also lives on the plains. It keeps very secretive everywhere. An indispensable condition for his life is dense thickets of shrubs. The second condition is accessible watering places, when they dry out during the dry season, the big kudu makes long-distance migrations. It is much easier to put up with human agricultural activities and, being an excellent jumper, overcomes fences 2-2.5 m high without much effort.
Usually kudu keeps in small herds, 6-10 (occasionally 30-40) heads. The herd consists of females with calves and young, immature males. Old bulls before the rut live alone or form groups of 5-6 individuals. Large kudu graze at night or in the morning and evening hours. By the same time, a watering place is dated. Food consists almost exclusively of the leaves of various shrubs, and only during the dry period do animals eat bulbs and rhizomes. There is no information on marking individual sites, to which the kudu is very attached, although there are observations that old males sometimes rub their cheeks on tree bark or on stones. It is possible that this is due to the leaving of odorous marks. It is also possible that the role of "bidding posts" is played by a shrub broken by horns, which is often found in kudu habitats.
During the mating season, large kudu males join herds of females. At this time, a sharp rivalry arises between males, manifested in frequent fights. It is not uncommon for two old males to be so intertwined with spiral horns that they can no longer free themselves. The threat pose of a large kudu is peculiar: the animal becomes sideways to the approaching enemy, lowering its head low and arching its back. If the enemy tries to go around him, the antelope turns sideways to him again. However, when attacking, the male necessarily changes its position and turns its horns towards the opponent.
Mating is also preceded by a special ceremony. The male, approaching the female, takes the position of imposing: he turns sideways to her with his head held high, facing the opposite direction. If the female is not disposed to accept courtship, she cools the ardor of the male with a strong blow to the side. Otherwise, she runs away, provoking a pursuit, during which the male, on the run, lays her head and neck or one of the horns on her back and tries to stop her. When this fails, the male tries to bend the female's neck to the ground with his neck.
Pregnancy in a large kudu lasts 7-8 months; cubs are usually born during the rainy season, but in some places, such as in Zambia and Southern Rhodesia, newborns were seen throughout the year. A newborn kudu hides in a secluded place where the mother comes to feed him. The kudu's voice when alarmed is a deaf, far audible bark, similar to a cough. Of the predators, lions, leopards, and hyena dogs attack the large kudu. Juveniles and females are often preyed upon by the cheetah. The great kudu, with its striking horns, has always been the most coveted trophy of European and American sports hunters.
big kudu(lat. Tragelaphus strepsiceros) is a representative of the genus of forest antelopes of the bovine subfamily of the bovid family, living in eastern and southern Africa. Despite their large area, they are small in most areas due to habitat loss and poaching. Greater kudu is one of two widely known species kudu, the second kind is lesser kudu.
Description. Large kudu have a narrow body with long legs, and their coloration can vary from brown to reddish brown. They have 4 to 12 vertical white stripes on the sides. The head is usually darker than the rest of the body, and has a small white spot that is located between the eyes.
Greater kudu males tend to be much larger than females. Males are also distinguished by large manes along the neck, and large horns with two and a half turns, which reach a length of about 120 cm. They diverge slightly from each other and slope back. The antlers start growing at 6 to 12 months of age, having one branch at two years of age, and two and a half turns are achieved by six years of age.
The greater kudu is one of the largest antelope species. Males weigh from 190 to 270 kg, height at the withers reaches up to 160 cm. Females weigh from 120 to 210 kg, height at the withers is about 100 cm. The length of the body together with the head varies from 180 to 250 cm, the length of the tail is from 30 to 55 cm. The ears are large and round.
Spreading. The territory of residence of large kudu extends from the east to Ethiopia, Tanzania, Eritrea and Kenya, further south to Zambia, Angola, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa. They were also imported in small quantities into New Mexico, but were not released in wildlife. Their habitat is an area full of shrubs, rocky slopes, dry riverbeds, and most importantly, there must be a source of water. They can be found on the plains bordering the territory abounding with shrubs, but these are rather rare cases.
Behavior and nutrition. During the day, the activity of large kudu decreases, they prefer to hide from the heat in the thickets. Activity, large kudu show at dawn and closer to sunset. At this time, they go to the watering hole and in search of places abounding in food. Their diet includes leaves, grass, shoots, and sometimes tubers, roots, and fruits. Although large kudu prefer to live in one area, nevertheless, during periods of drought, they can migrate over long distances to more favorable areas for living.
The main enemies of the big kudu are such predators as lions, leopards, hyenas and hyena-like dogs. Although cheetahs also prey on large kudu, they still cannot cope with mature males, so they prey on more vulnerable females and young. When a herd is threatened by predators, adults (usually females) make a danger call to alert the rest of the herd.
Social behavior and reproduction. Greater kudu females live in small herds of 6 to 20 individuals along with their calves. Males, as a rule, lead a solitary lifestyle, sometimes forming small herds of 4-8 individuals. The territory on which the herd lives varies from 3 to 6 square meters. km, passing about half of the territory per day during feeding.
Larger kudu reach sexual maturity between 1 and 3 years of age. The mating season takes place at the end of the rainy season, which can vary by region and climate. Before mating, large kudu undergo a courtship ritual. Pregnancy lasts about 240 days. Calving usually falls in February-March, when there is an abundance of young grass.
Large kudu usually have one calf, although sometimes there may be two. At first, the calf will wait for the mother to feed him, but later he becomes more insistent and will demand milk himself. For the first two weeks, the calf will be in a secluded area where it will be difficult for predators to find them. After that, until the age of 4-5 weeks, it becomes hard to stay with the herd only during the day. Males become independent at the age of 6 months, and females at the age of 1-2 years.
Kudu Antelope (Tragelaphus strepsiceros), or big kudu, got its name from the natives of Africa - the Hottentots. In their speech, they used this name only for this species of forest antelopes, but colonists from the New World christened the smaller species of the bovid family with this term.
The greater kudu can be considered one of the largest antelopes. The height of the animal at the withers reaches almost one and a half meters, the body length is 2.2 meters. Males weigh an average of 250 kg, the female weighs about a third less - about 170 kg. The color of the coat in males is gray-brown, in females and young animals it is light brown. In both, the head is colored somewhat darker than the body, and on the sides there are from 6 to 10 vertical stripes of a light color.
male head kudu antelope crowned with two huge, one meter long, horns twisted into a spiral of 2.5 turns. They begin to grow in young individuals in the region of 6-12 months of age, at the age of 2 years they curl into the first coil, and are fully formed only at the age of 6.
In addition, they are distinguished from females by long strands of hair on the throat.
The kudu antelope is widespread in East and South Africa, and inhabits areas where dense shrubs and constant sources of water are present. They try to avoid open plains.
There are no large concentrations of these herbivores. Large kudu live in small groups of 6-20 individuals, consisting of females and their offspring. different ages. Males usually live alone, occasionally gathering in small groups. Kudu antelopes are active in the early morning and late evening, when they go out to feed and drink, and during the day they hide from the heat in the shade of bushes.
Basically, these animals lead a sedentary lifestyle, but in the absence of water they can migrate over long distances.
The main component in the diet of large kudu are leaves and young shoots of shrubs, less often they eat grass and even fruits, in particular oranges and tangerines.
In view of the rather large size, only large predators - lions, leopards and hyena-like dogs - pose a danger to antelopes. A kudu cannot run away from its enemies in an open area - its running speed is less than the speed of predators. Therefore, when threatened, the animals rush into the bushes, easily jumping over obstacles 2.5 meters high, where the pursuers cannot run quickly.
During the mating season, which takes place at the end of the rainy season, the male kudu join the females. Conflicts constantly flare up between males - they butt each other, revealing the strongest. Sometimes these fights end sadly - having grappled with spiral horns, the males cannot free themselves from each other, and die.
Before mating, the males court the female, standing sideways to them and lifting their heads high. If the chosen one did not like something, she can bite or kick her partner in protest. Otherwise, the female large kudu runs away, and the boyfriend catches up with her and tries to stop her, after which mating occurs.
After 8 months, in February-March, at the very height of the rainy season, one, rarely two, calves are born. For the first two weeks of his life, he hides in the thickets, and his mother visits him to feed him.
