Hartmann’s mountain zebra are iconic animals in Namibia. Sure-footed and hardy, they live in the rugged areas of the country creating pathways up steep mountain slopes and surviving where few other animals can.
I have come across mountain zebra many times when I climb in the mountainous area around the Fish River Canyon and am always amazed at their tenacity and how they can nimbly crest rocky slopes. In the early days of Gondwana Collection Namibia in the late 1990s, however, there were only about fifty animals remaining in the area. When we were looking at farms to extend the Gondwana Canyon Park, we discovered why. We came across vast graveyards of zebra bones.
These are the remains of the mass slaughter of Hartmann’s mountain zebra that took place in the country in the 1950s and 60s. It was carried out on such a large scale and to such an extent that the population was severely reduced and regarded as endangered by the 1970s.
In an article written in 1972, Wilf Nussey described the pitiful fate of the mountain zebra. He explained how the Namib is fringed by farms that reach down to the edge of the desert. ‘In the dry winters the desert gemsbok move into the fringe and compete with domestic stock for the sparse grazing. At the same time hordes of mountain zebra descend from the vast mountain fort of the Naukluft to attack the grasses of the fringe farmland. For decades the result has been the same: wholesale slaughter of wild animals by famers. Some were undoubtedly protecting their livestock, but for many the fringe farms were little more than the excuse for an annual venison and biltong crop.’
Eugene Joubert wrote about the Hartmann’s mountain zebra for African Wildlife in the same year, saying how in the early 1950s there were 50 000 to 75 000 in the Khomas-Hochland area and escarpment zone. By 1960 their numbers had plummeted to 10 700 and in 1968 only 5500 were counted in an aerial survey. With another 1500 counted to the north, the total for the whole country came to 7000, a fraction of the population that had been previously recorded.
No other large mammal had been so ruthlessly persecuted as the Hartmann’s mountain zebra over these two decades. Joubert explained how the zebras were distributed over the marginal farming region that has low rainfall and frequent droughts. Farmers therefore regarded them as vermin that competed with their livestock for grazing and water, at times breaking fences and damaging drinking places. In addition, because of the frequent droughts, farmers were given permits to shoot the zebras.
When the mountain zebra numbers had been drastically reduced, people started to become aware that the species was fast disappearing. There was a pocket of them left on the farm Naukluft that was owned by a Cape Town businessman, Robbie Blake. When Blake died in 1966 the farm was up for sale. Bernabé de la Bat, the first director of Nature Conservation & Tourism who played a significant role in creating conservation areas in the country, was approached to purchase the land. A motivation was made to the Executive Committee of the SWA Administration for the land to be declared a nature reserve and in 1968 the Naukluft Mountain Zebra Park was proclaimed.
The Naukluft Mountain Zebra Park and the Namib Desert Park (proclaimed in 1956) merged in 1979 to become the sprawling Namib-Naukluft Park, which today is Namibia’s largest conservation area, comprising an area of 49 800km².
Mountain zebra numbers steadily increased in the protected areas over the subsequent years. They also increased in the Khomas-Hochland, where they are said to be challenging farmers once again, especially in times of drought; and in the canyon surrounds, where their numbers have risen to more than 2000. In drier times, the zebras are less visible when they migrate to areas with better grazing. Namibia today has approximately 32 000 mountain zebras.
It is heart-warming to now see mountain zebra in the Gondwana Canyon Park on a regular basis and to spot them at the Gondwana lodges bordering the Namib: Namib Desert Lodge, The Desert Grace and the Desert Whisper. Gondwana’s popular webcam (‘NamibiaCam’ YouTube), positioned at a waterhole at Namib Desert Lodge, livestreams the animal visitors that come to slake their thirst and these often include the mountain zebras.
The success story of the Hartmann’s mountain zebra is twofold: the protection of the species by far-sighted conservationists who created the game reserves and national parks we know today, and the hardiness of the animal that is so well-adapted to the harsher areas of Namibia and is a real survivor in the true sense of the word.
(References: ‘Endangered species become and embarrassment’, Sam Davis, The Windhoek Advertiser, January 7, 1981; ‘The Namib-Naukluft Park’, Wilf Nussey, African Wildlife, Volume 33, No1, 1971; ‘Hartmann Zebra’, Eugene Joubert, African Wildlife, Vol26, 1972; Conservation and Tourism in Namibia: the early days, Peter Bridgeford, 2025).