“The thing about zebras,” my safari guide said, “is that they always look a little fat. But that’s just gas. Zebras are full of gas.”
I am on a 10-day safari trip in Botswana, and so far I have learned that enough baboons can take down a leopard and that zebras are flatulent. I have also learned that rhinos are so stupid that they sometimes get their heads stuck between tree branches, warthogs gingerly back into their hidey-holes to enable a quick exit, and hyenas just wait around for the more glamorous predators to kill something, feast, and then leave the carcass to the scavengers.
In other words, I have observed essentially the same behavior on an African flood plain that I have seen in show business or, for that matter, in business and politics. Human workplaces are arenas with the dumb, the panicky, the lazy, and the gassy. In many ways, it’s reassuring to see all of that played out against a brilliant African sky. Nature is indeed a unifying tapestry. The wild animal kingdom has everything you’ll find at the office, including lions.
As we rumbled past a grassy open plain in our Land Rover, my guide suddenly told the driver to stop. The impalas, which were grazing peacefully, suddenly all froze in alarm. Their heads were all pointed in the same upwind direction: They smelled something dangerous.
“It could be a lioness,” my guide whispered to us, and the minute he said it, we spotted her on the hillside in the distance. She was too far to see with the naked eye — binoculars are your best friend on a safari — but the impalas didn’t need any help. They spotted her and bolted away.
Lions are “apex predators,” meaning no animals hunt them for food. Like whales and humans, they swan around in regal arrogance. The lioness on the hillside did not look disappointed when the impalas ran off. It was as if she were simply window-shopping for that night’s menu. She was making a quick circuit of the local farmer’s market before getting serious about what she wanted to eat.
At that moment, somewhere, the male lion was probably snoozing away the afternoon, rolling happily in the dusty shade. Male lions have one job, essentially, and that’s to patrol the perimeter at night. It seems like a pretty good gig.
But the precise definition of “apex predator” is that no other animal hunts it for food. In that respect, lions are about as apex as you can get. But the male lion who naps lazily under an African tree knows he is not safe from the worst, most deadly enemy of all: a younger male lion. The last thing the impala will see is the tooth and claw of the hungry lioness, but the last thing the male lion will see is his kin — maybe even his own son — going for his neck to get the old man out of the way.
That’s a tough way to go, for sure. But the most important lesson we can learn from the African flood plain is that you’re surrounded by enemies everywhere, some of whom are in your family.
This isn’t such a bad thing. If you look at the ancient, exhausted folks running American politics, banking, manufacturing, or show business, it’s hard not to see them as old lions basking in the sunshine, idly going about their routine in arrogant self-satisfaction. It’s hard not to root for some young lions to sneak up and do the necessary (and natural) thing. If the lower ranks of American life are filled with noisy baboons and anxious warthogs, why should the upper ranks be spared the fate of every old lion in the arena? I can’t be the only one who would like to see a changing of the guard as I pass by in my Land Rover, binoculars in hand.
Rob Long is a television writer and producer, including as a screenwriter and executive producer on Cheers, and the co-founder of Ricochet.com.