Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hey, I'm
Speaker 1: Christian Saga and this is brain stuff. You may have
Speaker 1: seen a few videos on the internet of zebras being
Speaker 1: ridden around and it looks pretty cool. And I'm not
Speaker 1: talking about movies like Sheena Queen of the Jungle where
Speaker 1: actors just ride a horse painted to look like a zebra.
Speaker 1: Zebras would be useful to ride, especially in some parts
Speaker 1: of Africa, because of their resistance to the diseases that
Speaker 1: kill horses and cattle. It's not impossible, So what's the deal.
Speaker 1: Why don't we ride zebras well? Zebras can be tamed,
Speaker 1: but they can't be domesticated, much like elephants. A domesticated
Speaker 1: animal is defined as an animal selectively bred in captivity
Speaker 1: and thereby modified from its wild ancestors for use by
Speaker 1: humans who control the animals breeding and food supply. The
Speaker 1: success rate for domesticating most animals is surprisingly low. In fact,
Speaker 1: according to geography professor or Jared Diamond, who's the author
Speaker 1: of Guns, Germs, and Steel, The Fates of Human Societies,
Speaker 1: every animal domesticated by humans, especially the major five goats,
Speaker 1: cheap pigs, cattle, and horses, they are all exactly alike
Speaker 1: in six important ways. First, they all eat the right diet. Second,
Speaker 1: they have a tendency not to panic. Third, they have
Speaker 1: a pleasant disposition. Fourth, they live within a social hierarchy.
Speaker 1: Fifth they have a very fast growth rate, and sixth
Speaker 1: they have the ability to breed in captivity. Now the
Speaker 1: problem with zebras they're unpredictable, aggressive, and just downright mean.
Speaker 1: An animal only has to fail one test to be excluded.
Speaker 1: The zebra does so spectacularly. Zebras lack a pleasant disposition,
Speaker 1: and in short, they're just jerks. They're unpredictably aggressive, and
Speaker 1: they have a nasty habit of biting and not letting go.
Speaker 1: In fact, zebras evolved to survive in Africa, where lions
Speaker 1: are their main predator. Therefore they're aggressive. They can kill
Speaker 1: a lion with a kick to the head. Imagine what
Speaker 1: that kick would do to you a human. For example,
Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties, a herd of zebras was captured
Speaker 1: for relocation in Zimbabwe. Sixteen animals were loaded into a
Speaker 1: truck and driven off. When the truck arrived at its destination,
Speaker 1: only one zebra was left alive. The others had kicked
Speaker 1: each other to death. It's possible to train them individually,
Speaker 1: but it's not easy. Trying to train and ride a
Speaker 1: zebra is pretty dangerous. In fact, Rory Young, who's a
Speaker 1: professional guide, ranger and tracker, says that while a zebra
Speaker 1: can be trained, it's not practical or humane to do it.
Speaker 1: In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, many efforts
Speaker 1: were made to train zebras. This was mainly because sub
Speaker 1: Saharan Africa is inhabited by flies that carried tripa nosamassis
Speaker 1: or trips. Cattle and horses are susceptible to this disease
Speaker 1: and they die, making large parts of Africa totally inaccessible
Speaker 1: to Europeans. So it was hoped that zebras would replace them.
Speaker 1: But to change zebras natural aggressive instincts would require harsh
Speaker 1: and inhumane treatment. However, there are a couple examples of
Speaker 1: humane zebra training. For instance, racehorse trainer Bill Turner trained
Speaker 1: one Indorset, England. He rides it around his village and
Speaker 1: a zebra, which is named Zebedee, sees everything as a predator,
Speaker 1: so it's totally unpredictable and easily startled. But Turner has
Speaker 1: had to use a different style of training where he
Speaker 1: didn't chastise the animal. And there's also an American teenager
Speaker 1: named Shaya Inman who has also trained her zebra to
Speaker 1: be written. You can go on YouTube and look and
Speaker 1: there's tons of videos of people riding zebras, but we
Speaker 1: don't know how they are trained, and they're not necessarily
Speaker 1: domesticated though, the other problem with zebras is that they're
Speaker 1: too small to be properly saddled. Zebras are actually small
Speaker 1: animals that haven't been bred to have strong backs that
Speaker 1: can support cargo or riders. They could possibly be used
Speaker 1: to pull carts, but even that is difficult based on
Speaker 1: their own social hierarchy. Some animal trainers and breeders have
Speaker 1: created zebra hybrids, such as the Source, a cross between
Speaker 1: a zebra and a horse, or the Zonkey, which is
Speaker 1: what you get when you cross a zebra and a donkey.
Speaker 1: So far, there's no specific purpose to creating zebra hybrids,
Speaker 1: though they're not stronger or more useful than regular horses
Speaker 1: and donkeys. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
Speaker 1: please visit us at how stuff works dot com