Great migrations

Animal migrations are the most awe-inspiring event, yet the saddest too. Today I finally watched Great Migrations on the National Geographic channel. The documentary shows animal migrations across the globe; in one scene they’re in Africa and in the next, they’re in Borneo.
In one heart-wrenching scene, a zebra foal stayed with his dead mother while the herd moved on. His father seemed uncertain on whether to help his son or follow his harem with the rest of the herd. He finally decided to help his son and tried to get the son to leave the mother. The son refused as it was part of his instinct to stay close to his mother no matter what. The father was equally adamant, he patiently paced back and forth, trying to get the son to move on. After four hours of doing this, the son still didn’t want to move. It was only when scavengers arrived that the issue was decided for father and son. The father steered his son away from the horrific scene of vultures feasting on the dead mother and hurried to catch up with the herd. They had a lot of miles to go; the herd left hours ago.
One common theme of migration is survival in their search for a more bountiful land. But another theme, unfortunately, emerged in most of the migration stories told: the effect of human activity on wildlife migration.
Female walruses off the coast of Alaska travelled for miles to a resting spot only to discover it wasn’t there. It was an ice floe that had probably melted away due to global warming. Even though they were tired, the female walruses had to swim on and went to another spot which was already filled to the brim cranky male walruses due to the limited space.
In another scene, pronghorns (deer-like mammals) in America come across a large factory obstructing their original migration path. They had to instead cross a road and even though there are signs reminding drivers to be wary of migrating pronghorns, many still get injured or die after being hit by trucks or cars.
Migration is already tough due to the movement of the seasons, the weather and predators, wildlife do not need the human factor to make things much, much worse.


Pictures sourced from National Geographic.