Fact 3: Zebras have a lifespan of about 28 years and reach reproductive maturity when they are only a few years old. Keep this in mind as you browse over the following quote, regarding a zebra population living in California's central coast:
The dismantling of the zoo began in 1937 after William Randolph Hearst experienced great financial difficulty and was forced to curtail his construction activities and cut other expenses at the ranch. Many animals were donated to public zoos or sold. Dispersal of the zoo animals extended over more than fifteen years and it was never entirely completed. Most of animals had been placed by 1953, two years after Mr. Hearsts death, but many animals were permitted to range free on the ranch. In 1958 when the State was given Hearst Castle, there were Rocky Mountain elk, tahr goats, llamas, white fallow deer, zebras, Barbary sheep, and sambar deer still on the ranch. Today, few of these animals survive, but often zebra may be seen grazing in the pastures along Highway 1 near the town of San Simeon.
While these zebras have no doubt had several reproductive cycles, or generations, they still live in small numbers near the original location of the Hearst Zoo. There aren't many competing species in the rich grasslands near San Simeon (lots of bird species, but no land mammals nearby, unless you count the elephant seals along the beaches), so we wonder why the populations of zebra and the other animals have not exploded in the last 50 or so years.
Why not?
Will there ever be wild zebra populations all over California? Not anytime soon.
cellmould