I was watching a “real life” TV show about a wildlife veterinarian in South Africa. One of the local people spoke about the decline of the cheetahs and impalas in wildlife preserves. His comment was that it was unfortunate, but they weren’t part of the “Big Five” and therefore weren’t as relevant to tourism. He said that they were part of the “second 25.”
The “big five” are the lion, the African elephant, the Cape buffalo, the leopard and the black rhinoceros. They were called the big five because they were the hardest animals to kill in the golden age of hunting safaris. But still, to this day, that categorization is used for deciding which animals should be protected or prioritized for tourism.
I think that this embodies old thinking and doesn’t really reflect the desires of tourists today. Think about it, one of the “big five” that needs protected so that tourists can see it is the Cape buffalo; not the giraffe, zebra, hippo, cheetah, or gazelle. Look at that short list. Honestly, if you were going to South Africa to see wildlife, would you put the Cape buffalo as a priority over those others?
I have a group of students who come from well-off Korean families, and many of them have traveled extensively; two have even been to Africa. I gave my students a list of 14 African animals* and asked them to rank the animals in the order that they would most want to see them in the wild.
The results were surprising. Read for yourself (the “Big Five” are highlighted in blue.).
| Table 1 | Individual Student Rankings (All students) | total | overall ranking | firsts | seconds | ||||||
| giraffe | 3 | 2 | 8 | 5 | 6 | 8 | 1 | 33 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| cheetah | 6 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 8 | 1 | 11 | 35 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| Leopard | 9 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 14 | 38 | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| gazelle | 4 | 6 | 6 | 1 | 11 | 7 | 12 | 47 | 4 | 1 | 0 |
| impala | 1 | 1 | 7 | 3 | 13 | 13 | 9 | 47 | 5 | 2 | 0 |
| Lion | 8 | 14 | 1 | 7 | 1 | 4 | 13 | 48 | 6 | 2 | 0 |
| Rhino | 13 | 5 | 9 | 11 | 3 | 6 | 4 | 51 | 7 | 0 | 0 |
| zebra | 7 | 12 | 11 | 6 | 5 | 9 | 2 | 52 | 8 | 0 | 1 |
| Buffalo | 5 | 8 | 13 | 10 | 10 | 3 | 10 | 59 | 9 | 0 | 0 |
| ostrich | 2 | 9 | 4 | 9 | 14 | 14 | 8 | 60 | 10 | 0 | 1 |
| elephant | 10 | 11 | 14 | 8 | 4 | 10 | 3 | 60 | 11 | 0 | 0 |
| crocodile | 15 | 7 | 10 | 14 | 7 | 5 | 7 | 65 | 12 | 0 | 0 |
| gorilla | 12 | 10 | 3 | 13 | 9 | 12 | 6 | 65 | 13 | 0 | 0 |
| Hippo | 14 | 13 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 11 | 5 | 79 | 14 | 0 | 0 |
I had expected the lion to be first, but it came in sixth. I was also surprised that gazelle and impala came in higher than elephant and zebra. I was not surprised that the buffalo came in ninth, except that I actually expected it to be lower (there’s my bias. I would have put everything except the crocodile higher than the buffalo.).
This table shows the results when I remove the two students who have already been on safari in Africa.
| Table 2 | Individual Student Rankings (Minus 2 students) | total | overall ranking | firsts | seconds | ||||
| leopard | 4 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 15 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
| cheetah | 3 | 2 | 4 | 8 | 1 | 18 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| lion | 14 | 1 | 7 | 1 | 4 | 27 | 3 | 2 | 0 |
| giraffe | 2 | 8 | 5 | 6 | 8 | 29 | 4 | 0 | 1 |
| gazelle | 6 | 6 | 1 | 11 | 7 | 31 | 5 | 1 | 0 |
| rhino | 5 | 9 | 11 | 3 | 6 | 34 | 6 | 0 | 0 |
| impala | 1 | 7 | 3 | 13 | 13 | 37 | 7 | 1 | 0 |
| zebra | 12 | 11 | 6 | 5 | 9 | 43 | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| crocodile | 7 | 10 | 14 | 7 | 5 | 43 | 9 | 0 | 0 |
| buffalo | 8 | 13 | 10 | 10 | 3 | 44 | 10 | 0 | 0 |
| elephant | 11 | 14 | 8 | 4 | 10 | 47 | 11 | 0 | 0 |
| gorilla | 10 | 3 | 13 | 9 | 12 | 47 | 12 | 0 | 0 |
| ostrich | 9 | 4 | 9 | 14 | 14 | 50 | 13 | 0 | 0 |
| hippo | 13 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 11 | 60 | 14 | 0 | 0 |
Interesting that cats are the top three.
Look at what the Big Five would be by ordinal (firsts and seconds). Again, the differences are huge when you factor out people who have already been to Africa and seen some of these animals.
| All students | |||
| overall ranking | firsts | seconds | |
| impala | 1 | 2 | 0 |
| lion | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| giraffe | 3 | 1 | 1 |
| cheetah | 4 | 1 | 1 |
| gazelle | 5 | 1 | 0 |
| Only students who haven’t been to Africa | |||
| overall ranking | firsts | seconds | |
| lion | 1 | 2 | 0 |
| cheetah | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| gazelle | 3 | 1 | 0 |
| impala | 4 | 1 | 0 |
| leopard | 5 | 0 | 3 |
If these results are typical, then the idea of the “Big Five” is doing African tourism a big disservice, as both of these rankings incorporate only a minority of the Big Five that African tourism promotes.
Obviously this is not a scientific or statistically accurate representation, with sampling sizes of 7 and 5, and the fact that I have no professional training on conducting surveys. For one thing, for students who didn’t know what they were, I described gazelle as big deer with horns and impalas as little deer with horns that hop as they run. I know that there are many breeds of impala, bok and gazelle, but I decided that if they wanted to see one kind, then they equally would want to see all kinds (like I said, not scientific).
*Fourteen because that’s how many I thought of. If there are major omissions, oops.
Updated: Hyenas! Oops. Wildebeest! Damn…
Further Reading: