WEBVTT - Why Don't Humans Ride Zebras?

0:00:02.040 --> 0:00:09.719
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hey, I'm

0:00:09.800 --> 0:00:12.400
<v Speaker 1>Christian Saga and this is brain stuff. You may have

0:00:12.440 --> 0:00:15.040
<v Speaker 1>seen a few videos on the internet of zebras being

0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:17.799
<v Speaker 1>ridden around and it looks pretty cool. And I'm not

0:00:17.840 --> 0:00:20.639
<v Speaker 1>talking about movies like Sheena Queen of the Jungle where

0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:23.239
<v Speaker 1>actors just ride a horse painted to look like a zebra.

0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:26.799
<v Speaker 1>Zebras would be useful to ride, especially in some parts

0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:29.720
<v Speaker 1>of Africa, because of their resistance to the diseases that

0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:34.040
<v Speaker 1>kill horses and cattle. It's not impossible, So what's the deal.

0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:37.760
<v Speaker 1>Why don't we ride zebras well? Zebras can be tamed,

0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:41.920
<v Speaker 1>but they can't be domesticated, much like elephants. A domesticated

0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:45.479
<v Speaker 1>animal is defined as an animal selectively bred in captivity

0:00:45.680 --> 0:00:49.720
<v Speaker 1>and thereby modified from its wild ancestors for use by

0:00:49.920 --> 0:00:53.760
<v Speaker 1>humans who control the animals breeding and food supply. The

0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:58.520
<v Speaker 1>success rate for domesticating most animals is surprisingly low. In fact,

0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:01.720
<v Speaker 1>according to geography professor or Jared Diamond, who's the author

0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:05.679
<v Speaker 1>of Guns, Germs, and Steel, The Fates of Human Societies,

0:01:06.120 --> 0:01:10.639
<v Speaker 1>every animal domesticated by humans, especially the major five goats,

0:01:10.760 --> 0:01:14.559
<v Speaker 1>cheap pigs, cattle, and horses, they are all exactly alike

0:01:14.640 --> 0:01:19.640
<v Speaker 1>in six important ways. First, they all eat the right diet. Second,

0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:22.720
<v Speaker 1>they have a tendency not to panic. Third, they have

0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:27.399
<v Speaker 1>a pleasant disposition. Fourth, they live within a social hierarchy.

0:01:27.400 --> 0:01:31.039
<v Speaker 1>Fifth they have a very fast growth rate, and sixth

0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:34.560
<v Speaker 1>they have the ability to breed in captivity. Now the

0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:39.559
<v Speaker 1>problem with zebras they're unpredictable, aggressive, and just downright mean.

0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:43.080
<v Speaker 1>An animal only has to fail one test to be excluded.

0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:48.080
<v Speaker 1>The zebra does so spectacularly. Zebras lack a pleasant disposition,

0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:51.880
<v Speaker 1>and in short, they're just jerks. They're unpredictably aggressive, and

0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:54.840
<v Speaker 1>they have a nasty habit of biting and not letting go.

0:01:55.360 --> 0:01:58.800
<v Speaker 1>In fact, zebras evolved to survive in Africa, where lions

0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:02.880
<v Speaker 1>are their main predator. Therefore they're aggressive. They can kill

0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:05.680
<v Speaker 1>a lion with a kick to the head. Imagine what

0:02:05.760 --> 0:02:08.840
<v Speaker 1>that kick would do to you a human. For example,

0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:11.840
<v Speaker 1>in the nineteen eighties, a herd of zebras was captured

0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:16.040
<v Speaker 1>for relocation in Zimbabwe. Sixteen animals were loaded into a

0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:19.959
<v Speaker 1>truck and driven off. When the truck arrived at its destination,

0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:24.120
<v Speaker 1>only one zebra was left alive. The others had kicked

0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:27.840
<v Speaker 1>each other to death. It's possible to train them individually,

0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:31.239
<v Speaker 1>but it's not easy. Trying to train and ride a

0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:34.960
<v Speaker 1>zebra is pretty dangerous. In fact, Rory Young, who's a

0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:38.519
<v Speaker 1>professional guide, ranger and tracker, says that while a zebra

0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:42.280
<v Speaker 1>can be trained, it's not practical or humane to do it.

0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:46.440
<v Speaker 1>In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, many efforts

0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:49.400
<v Speaker 1>were made to train zebras. This was mainly because sub

0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:54.600
<v Speaker 1>Saharan Africa is inhabited by flies that carried tripa nosamassis

0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:59.079
<v Speaker 1>or trips. Cattle and horses are susceptible to this disease

0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:03.400
<v Speaker 1>and they die, making large parts of Africa totally inaccessible

0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:07.120
<v Speaker 1>to Europeans. So it was hoped that zebras would replace them.

0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:11.760
<v Speaker 1>But to change zebras natural aggressive instincts would require harsh

0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:15.840
<v Speaker 1>and inhumane treatment. However, there are a couple examples of

0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:20.280
<v Speaker 1>humane zebra training. For instance, racehorse trainer Bill Turner trained

0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:23.480
<v Speaker 1>one Indorset, England. He rides it around his village and

0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:27.440
<v Speaker 1>a zebra, which is named Zebedee, sees everything as a predator,

0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:31.440
<v Speaker 1>so it's totally unpredictable and easily startled. But Turner has

0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:33.880
<v Speaker 1>had to use a different style of training where he

0:03:33.919 --> 0:03:37.520
<v Speaker 1>didn't chastise the animal. And there's also an American teenager

0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:40.720
<v Speaker 1>named Shaya Inman who has also trained her zebra to

0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:43.040
<v Speaker 1>be written. You can go on YouTube and look and

0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:46.360
<v Speaker 1>there's tons of videos of people riding zebras, but we

0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:48.839
<v Speaker 1>don't know how they are trained, and they're not necessarily

0:03:48.880 --> 0:03:52.160
<v Speaker 1>domesticated though, the other problem with zebras is that they're

0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:55.720
<v Speaker 1>too small to be properly saddled. Zebras are actually small

0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:58.920
<v Speaker 1>animals that haven't been bred to have strong backs that

0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:02.920
<v Speaker 1>can support cargo or riders. They could possibly be used

0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:05.640
<v Speaker 1>to pull carts, but even that is difficult based on

0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:10.120
<v Speaker 1>their own social hierarchy. Some animal trainers and breeders have

0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:14.000
<v Speaker 1>created zebra hybrids, such as the Source, a cross between

0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:16.479
<v Speaker 1>a zebra and a horse, or the Zonkey, which is

0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:18.640
<v Speaker 1>what you get when you cross a zebra and a donkey.

0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:22.480
<v Speaker 1>So far, there's no specific purpose to creating zebra hybrids,

0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:26.160
<v Speaker 1>though they're not stronger or more useful than regular horses

0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:31.640
<v Speaker 1>and donkeys. For more on this and thousands of other topics,

0:04:31.839 --> 0:04:44.800
<v Speaker 1>please visit us at how stuff works dot com