Cape Buffaloes : Lesson from the wilderness

In 2011 while leading a 21 day southern African expedition trip through the Okavango Delta in Botswana, I witnessed a lone Buffalo mother and calf that had become separated by nearly 40 miles apart from a herd we had encountered few hours earlier. I remembered that despite the Buffaloes" long gestation and the ability of calves to gain their feet within 10 minutes of birth, they are too feeble to follow their mothers for several hours and need several weeks to keep up.

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Time waits for no man:

Mothers that drop calves during the rest period are often left behind if the herd moves off forcing mother and calf to go into hiding. Like the mother and calf I witnessed at the Okavango Delta, Buffaloes follow the knowledge passed on through the dissemination of collective memory from parents to young ones.

“In order to survive one must remember it’s a jungle out there”.

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Healthy Buffalo adults are vulnerable only to lions. Spotted hyenas are the main predators to young, diseased, or injured adults. Without a set-plan, most animals risk being wiped out of their entire existence even to extinction. However, nature has its set-plans to balance the ecosystem eg. lions risk mob attack when they catch a buffalo, often treed, and on occasions trampled and gored to death. Buffaloes fleeing from Lions or hyenas often bunch tightly and run at much less than top speed making it difficult for the predator to single out a quarry. “Having a set-plan is key to your success”.

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Conclusion:

Have concrete, clear, intelligent and rigorously pursued performance mechanisms that keep you on track.