Zebra Species Question

[Dee S]

When i was researching zebras, i found out that all resources are confusing. They are wonderful animals. They are iconic species of Africa. I have collected a Hartman stallion in Namibia, 2018. An african trophy room, simply must have zebra, possibly a local subspecies / species for the hunting ground.

Couldn't agree more on the research being so confusing and the fact that every trophy room should have one, at least one. My Hartmann's is in the process of being mounted and I have a Burchell's in Botswana being prepared for shipment in the near future. Next, a Crawshay's.

 

[WAB]

If you can take a Crawshay's, I'd go for it. I'm planning a hunt to Zambia just for the Crawshay's.
But to answer your question, Crawshay's and Grant's/Boehms are two separate sub-species.

The zebra line is a tricky one and people will argue about the differences. They can agree on three species of zebra; Grevy's, Mt. Zebra, and Plains.
They can agree on two sub-species of Mt. Zebra, but the Plains zebra is where it turns into muddy water.
The Grevy is off-limits to hunting.
The Mt Zebra has two sub-species, the Hartmann's and Cape. The Cape is currently not exportable to the USA unless you haul it across the border into Namibia and ship it out as a Hartmann's, which still requires a CITES permit and it would take a DNA sample to tell the difference.
The Plains zebra, the gray area, has five, six, or maybe even seven, subspecies, depending on who you talk to. The most common is the Plains/Burchell's/Damara. Some will argue that the Burchell's and Damara are two separate sub-species? Then there is the Chapman's, the Crawshay's, the Grant's/Boehm, the Selous', the Maneless, and we could toss in the extinct Quagga, which by the way, they are trying to bring back through genetic breeding programs.
And some will read the above and disagree on some or all of that information. It would be nice if there was a biologist somewhere in Africa that would do a comprehensive study on zebra and publish a book dedicated to that work. No other animals, just zebra, chock-full of pictures, DNA studies, distribution maps, etc.

As an example of confusion. I shot a zebra south of Windhoek, Namibia on my trip in 2019. At the time, my PH stated it was a Burchell's. Since then, others have seen the pictures/video and told me, no, that is a Chapman's. To this day, I don't know for sure which one it is.

For me, the zebra is my all-time favorite animal to take with a bow and if I'm lucky enough to return to Africa in the future, a zebra will be on the list should the opportunity present itself.

I took a beautiful Crawshay’s stallion on my first African hunt in Zambia. Beautiful animal.

 

[BeeMaa]

I was looking at my Burchell's Zebra rug this morning and thinking about an upcoming safari. What are the different types of Zebra? Turns out there are three...Burchell's, Hartmann's and Grévy's, but hunting is only offered for Burchell's and Hartmann's. I'd heard of the first two, but not Grévy's.

Can Grévy's Zebra be hunted? Turns out their numbers are considered too low for hunting and are only located in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia (only Ethiopia allows any hunting). Well damn...that kinda sucks.

I kept digging around and found a picture from an AH member (@xausa) and sent him a PM with my phone number asking about it. Not too much later he called back and I had a wonderful conversation with him. I obtained permission from him over the phone to share a few of the details.

Turns out, as we were speaking, he was standing on the very hide of the animal in the picture. He recalled the hunt and how at the time it was no big deal to hunt this species. The hunt took place in Kenya (prior to the hunting ban in 1977) and he mentioned that several other Burchell's Zebra were taken for camp meat. He brought the hides of all the Zebra home and had given them to family and friends...but kept the Grévy's for himself.

@xausa has a lot of experience under his belt and in the short time on the phone, I could tell he was a wealth of knowledge. I'd also like to add that he's a USMC veteran of Viet Nam and was on the USMC rifleman team in Quantico, VA. The skills he learned in the military are currently being put to use to reduce the numbers of whitetail deer in his home of TN. I wanted to publicly thank him for taking time out of his day to give me a call and talk about an incredible (and now unattainable) trophy. Thank you @xausa. Here is the picture he previously posted...

I'll end this post with a quote from L.P. Hartley "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there". Certainly true. What it means to me is that we are living in the good old days right now. Take the opportunities presented to you and cherish them. Happy hunting to all.