Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 93
Zebu cattle with their elegant lyre-shaped horns are brought by their herders to
this market in Ambalavao, central Madagascar. The zebu thrive under conditions where most
domestic cattle breeds do poorly.
ers that oscillate between bone-dry and raging torrents. The rivers carry the
red soil into the Indian Ocean and Mozambique Channel. When astronauts
look down at Madagascar from orbit they describe an island that seems to be
bleeding to death.
Madagascar's exploding human population is primarily to blame for the
island's slow-motion ecological disaster. It is ironic that the artifi cial selec-
tion that produced the superbly adapted zebu gave them the ability to sur-
vive on the sparse grasses that emerge after the massive burns, but has also
contributed to this devastation.
The domestication of zebu is not the only domestication that has had
unintended consequences. At around the same time as the aurochs was being
