Quirky Questions

8/1/2013

All rangers have entertained visitors' questions that evoke politely concealed chuckles, the most common being "Why don't tigers feature in the Big 5?" - The answer of course is that tigers don't occur naturally in Africa.

Long-time ranger, Elliot Mgiba, reports that the strangest question he has ever been asked on safari is if the airstrip wind sock was for feeding giraffes. Richard de Gouveia laughs as he remembers his guests watching giraffes browsing on the treetops and asking "how many birds does a giraffe eat in a day?"

Perhaps the strangest comment Richard recalls came on an occasion where lions had killed a giraffe and had been feeding on the carcass for about three days. On the third day new guests arrived at camp and the first stop on their game drive was the feasting lions. By this stage the giraffe had been completely dismembered and after Richard had described the hunt that brought it down a few days earlier, a guest turned to him and asked: "What are the chances of survival of this giraffe?"

And, then there was a young family who were five minutes into their morning safari drive when the six-year-old daughter asked shrilly: "Mum, is this the ranger you think is so good looking?"