Breeding The Quagga Back from Extinction
The Quagga Project is aimed at rectifying a tragic mistake made over a hundred years ago through greed and short-sightedness. It is hoped that if this revival is successful, in due course herds showing the phenotype of the original quagga will again roam the plains of the Karoo.
1883 After Quaggas had been ruthlessly hunted in the South African Karoo, the last Quagga died at Amsterdam Zoo
1969 A scientist at the Iziko Museum in Cape Town, Reinhold Rau, re-mounted a quagga foal as part of the construction of a display at the museum
1987 The non-profit Quagga Project was founded
2021 The Rau Quagga Breed Society of South Africa is set up as a registration and information-sharing platform for all breeders of Quagga.
ORIGIN OF THE NAME “QUAGGA”
This unusual name for a variety of zebra has been adopted from the Hottentot-speaking indigenous people of the South African interior.
The name "Quagga" is an onomatopoeia from the sound the Quagga makes.
THE SCIENCE
When the University of California analyzed DNA samples of dried tissue from the Iziko foal’s skin and from two additional Quaggas Reinhold re-mounted in 1980, it revealed that the Quagga was not a separate species, but a southern population of the Plains Zebra. This meant that the Quagga could be resurrected by selective breeding! This fact makes a big difference – the Quagga’s extinction may not be forever! An exciting breeding project has been ongoing since 1987 which aims at reversing the Quagga’s extinction.
VANISHING STRIPES
Why exactly the Burchell’s or plains zebra lost some of its stripes is unclear but it could be possible that colour variations have to do with nutrition and the different vegetation types in various areas.
The quagga that lives on the West Coast is much paler in colour than those that live near Wellington and Hermon in the Western Cape.
This differing colouration seems to provide optimal camouflage: the quagga in each area blend better into their specific surroundings. Another purported reason for the quagga’s vanishing stripes, apart from camouflage and hence protection from predators, is tsetse flies.
It has been suggested that the zebra’s stripes repel tsetse flies and so too the diseases they carry. Because the quagga lived outside the tsetse fly areas, the distinct stripes became obsolete.
Quaggas were endemic to South Africa and inhabited the Karoo and southern Free State, but because they competed for grazing with livestock, they were hunted to extinction by hunters and farmers in the late 19th century.
When it was discovered that the Burchell’s or Plains zebra is a DNA match for the extinct quagga, the project set about attempting to ‘rebreed’ the quagga. This was done by selecting brownish zebra with reduced stripes and white tail bushes.
In this way, the quagga genes could be concentrated to produce an animal that looks precisely like the ‘extinct’ quagga.
BIRTH OF THE QUAGGA PROJECT
German-born taxidermist, Reinhold Rau, was a modest, shy, and humble person who started working on constructing mammal, bird, fish, and reptile displays for the SA Museum in Cape Town in 1951, became fascinated by a quagga foal in 1969 while remounting it.
This was the only remaining specimen in the museum’s collection. He collected dried tissue samples from the foal’s skin, and together with samples from quagga in the Natural History Museum in Mainz, Germany, and others he had previously remounted, were sent for DNA analyses at the University of California, Berkeley. The results showed the quagga to be part of a southern population of the Burchell’s or plains zebra, which meant it could be ‘resurrected’ with selective breeding for coat color.
It was found that plains zebras from Etosha in Namibia looked similar to the extinct quagga, as did some plains zebra in Umfolozi Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal.
With the assistance of South African National Parks, zebra from these two sources were translocated to the Western Cape and the breeding project commenced in 1987. Rau estimated it would take five generations or 25 years to breed a quagga, but the quagga was rebred in just three generations
Further details can be found on this website, which has been voted one of the best educational sites on the internet.
QUAGGA BREEDING IN SOUTH AFRICA
The Quagga Project started in 1987 and is an attempt by a group of dedicated people in South Africa to use selective breeding to achieve a breeding lineage of Burchell's zebra (Equus quagga burchellii) which visually resembles the extinct quagga (Equus quagga quagga) thus bringing back an animal from extinction and reintroduce it into reserves in its former habitat.
LERMITAGE QUAGGA LODGE AND THE QUAGGA PROJECT
Current numbers of Rau Quagga have grown to approximately 240 animals of which L'Ermitage Quagga Lodge owns approximately 115 quaggas, all registered with the Rau Quagga Breed Society of which joint lodge owner, Albé Bester-Treurnicht, had been president.
Meet the 40 animals when staying at the luxury L'Ermitage Quagga Lodge on the banks of the Berg River and embark on a guided nature drive in an open vehicle.
Bottomline: The project may have started out as a fascination for Rau, but it has spread among those who didn’t want to see the quagga lost forever – and now it’s a scientific project. While quaggasmay not be essential in the food chain, it’s good to know they’re back and we haven’t lost this animal that is thoroughly South African – quaggas occur nowhere else on earth.
What The Quagga Project has accomplished, cannot be overstated: it has brought back to life an animal that had been declared extinct.
