Carnage on the Kalahari

I like TV as much as the next person. Sometimes I just want to be entertained and sometimes I want to learn something from the viewing experience. So when I read in People magazine—my weekly secret indulgence—about a new Discovery Channel series called Africa, I decided to tune in. I’ve watched these kinds of shows before, so I really should have been prepared, but we never are, are we?

The first installment in the series is called Kalahari, referring to a region in southwest Africa. It’s a hostile area filled with fossil lakes and desert fog and has very little water. I was really looking forward to the sweeping landscape and the breathtaking photography these kinds of shows are famous for. And then I started watching. A better name for it would have been Carnage. In big letters. And bolded.

It began with a windswept sand dune and a spider rolling down it. Incredible. And then it moved on to the good stuff—the big animals. I love giraffes, those gentle vegetarians that don’t seem to cause much trouble. That is until another male invades their territory. A giraffe’s neck is six feet long. It weights more than five hundred pounds. When a giraffe fights it starts by swinging its neck like a pendulum, gathering speed and then WHAM! it strikes the other animal continuously until it is down. Horrifying.

It was time to take a break. I pressed pause. I needed a cup of tea and maybe a Xanax.

Act two of Kalahari/Carnage started off with, say it with me people, more carnage! This time around it was between a leopard and an antelope. Antelopes and zebras, do they ever get a break? After that the show moved on to giant, gross, repulsive slimy bugs doing God knows what to each other. Time to fast forward. After the bugs came the birds of prey circling over the remains of some animal carcass. I’ve never been a big fan of birds. Now I know why.

I looked at the clock. Halfway through. Surely they would show me something warm and fuzzy next. They did. Baby ostriches, just hatched, were trying to get across this vast expanse of sand to the watering hole before they died of thirst. And just to make it interesting and get their little hearts going, those sadistic Discovery Channel people tossed in stampeding zebras, a couple of elephants and lions on a rampage.

When was this going to be over? And then…black rhinos, whose numbers have been depleted to fewer than five thousand, gathered at night at a secret watering hole. Something like this had never been filmed. First a mother emerged out of the dark with her calf and then others arrived. It was truly breathtaking.

So in the end, I did learn some things. In one of the most inhospitable landscapes on earth, life prevailed and I was witness to these incredibly beautiful creatures.

Just remember to fast forward.