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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Thirty Two: On Safari -- expressing the essence of nature > Remains of a zebra kill, South Luangwa National Park, Zambia, 2006
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02-JAN-2006

Remains of a zebra kill, South Luangwa National Park, Zambia, 2006

Several years ago, lions feasted on this zebra, leaving only its skin and bones on the green grass and brown mud of South Luangwa National Park. The carcass is still there, long after the hyenas and vultures have scraped the last shreds of meat from its bones. This was one of the few safari images I could leave my vehicle to make. I could move around to find a vantage point that brings some energy back into the carcass, making life out of death. The skin is in shreds, the rib cage is rising from the rear, yet one leg remains bent, as if in flight.

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Phil Douglis28-Jan-2006 03:55
Thank you, Mia. This image very much needs to be here to remind us that nature here is not a Disney film or a fairy tale. Nature can be raw and hard and unforgiving, and this image provides a needed balance. You are right -- it happens to be the only zebra represented in this gallery. I did make a number of zebra photographs however. Here is my favorite:http://www.worldisround.com/articles/271122/photo60.html
Mia 28-Jan-2006 03:19
Raw, striking and realistic - no pity. This is your only photograph of a zebra in this gallery... which would have likely been incomplete without it. The cycle of life and death is present everywhere, quite evident here.
Phil Douglis24-Jan-2006 03:44
Yes, and that cycle is always evident in places such as this. Death is not concealed or prettified. A zebra is killed by a pride of lions, eaten, and left to the hyenas and vultures to finish. And what is left fertilizes the ground below it. You can see the lush green grass enveloping this carcass.
Tim May24-Jan-2006 00:25
There is a partnership here with the image Monochromatic Stork perch. Each reminds us of the cycle of life - the starkness present in the beauty.
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