The wild truth about Lions and Gazelles

What teachers do not tell you about the Savanna Rules. Do you really think running is the first thing animals do when they wake up? Another episode of theory destroyed by facts.

New York - An over-abused parable at MBA courses is the one of the Lion and the Gazelle. With face expressions posed at "Hemingway telling his African adventures" style, lecturers repeat and repeat the prayer of Savanna capitalism:

"Every morning in Africa, a Gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a Lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the Gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn't matter whether you are a Lion or a Gazelle. When the sun comes up, you'd better be running."

There are yet some points that lecturers are missing.

First of all, Lions hunt at night. Only untalented lions, unable to get anything at night, would stay up in the morning to try get something to eat. Then, mostly female lions hunt. So the claim is only valid for "untalented female lions", to avoid generalizations.

Second, Gazelles seldom run. They only do that when they see a threat; it is rarely represented by a lion. Most of the times it is a van packed with tourists and screaming kids. Gazelles like to perform other activities when they wake up, than start running like crazy. If they do such things, park guards would think they have gone nuts and would shoot them down.

Third, Lions also like to feed other stuff than gazelles. Call it antelopes, zebras, wildebeests, young giraffes, children elephants, humans: all that was in your kid Savanna animals book fits the feline mouth. So if a proper gazelle is running too fast, the lion may also opt for a tender, little, slow moving dik-dik.

Fourth, only old or children gazelles are left behind by the group, and are eventually eaten by predators. So if you are young and fairly fit, as most of the people pursuing an MBA degree, lions should be no great worry for you. Nevertheless, the mass of quadrupeds willing to catch them is fairly more various than mere lions. Cheetahs is just next in the list. So, gazelles who only watch out for lions are eaten by cheetahs.

Finally, whenever all of the above conditions are respected, the wild creatures would have to run trying to avoid park buses that traditionally station around hunting scenes, following the lions step by step. I saw it personally last August, in the Serengeti park in Tasmania. After no less than ten vans teamed up to follow two untalented female lions hunting a nutty old gazelle, one of the big cats raised her head from the bush, and seemed to gave a "What shall I tell you" look to her companion. The gazelle was happily jumping away on the horizon.

The right claim would then be:

"When the sun goes up in the Savanna, untalented female lions should run faster than any old eatable quadrupeds, or humans; they always get something in the end. When the sun goes up in the Savanna, gazelles should open their eyes and give a look around to spot possible predators; if no one is there, they can relax and eat grass. It does not matter if you are an untalented female lion or a gazelle. When the sun goes up, vans packed with tourists will bother you."

So, the morale of the Lion and Gazelle parable is that if a professor has no better example than that, he has no idea about what life in the Savanna is like, and you may better drop the class.

- Stefano Casertano