The Watering Hole Nature is not a kind thing. It is set up so one creature eats another creature who has eaten another creature and so on. Nature works as long as procreation works. One little slip up or one radiation release and creatures are going to be gone. Even the grass chomping, herbivores would die off. They would over graze and over reproduce and, surprisingly, starve to death. Nature is a heartless bitch. The grass and herbs and leaves are helpless. They don’t matter. They can’t feel anything. A herbivore comes along, see food and chomps away. While it is eating, a carnivore is looking at it, slobbering and hungry. To the lion, a zebra is a meal, nothing more to it than that. It doesn’t wait until the zebra fattens up. It is food now for sure as opposed to more food later. Lions don’t ranch. That the zebra looks pretty funny doesn’t matter. They might think the lion can’t see them because of their stripes but they are wrong and usually dead wrong. When the lion gets it on the ground it will be bloody and look like any other dead creature. The lion doesn't always catch the running zebra but that’s the way to bet. When a hyena distracts the lion and the cheetah sneaks up on it and kills it, the lion looks like the zebra it’s belching and farting from. The cheetah, as part of the deal, leaves a bit of lion for the hyenas to eat. It’s not the steaks and ribs but hyenas aren’t that fussy. They’d eat elephant crap if they were hungry. The hyenas appreciate this until they help a really hungry cheetah. Then it’s lights out for them. Cheetahs are dishonest but too fast for anyone to do anything to them. Occasionally one will stalk an elephant calf. Just as it gets ready to leap, and is not paying the attention it should, the mother elephant stomps it into bloody dirt. There isn’t enough cheetah left for a hyena too so much as snack on. It’s left to the maggots to clean up the place. It looks like hell but nature is not all sweetness and light. Usually, the lion is safe enough. The cheetah prefers antelope and only eats lion when it is very hungry. Lions are tough meat and tastes exactly as you would imagine they would. The lion is always wary because it has no way of knowing how hungry the cheetah is or where the hyenas are or where the cheetahs are. They are not always sure where they are. The cheetahs don’t show themselves until it is too late.. The cheetah is too fast for the lion to catch. The lion is too proud to keep close watch for one. The cheetah make lions look like fools and then look like dead zebras. He’d eat them all but the numbers are too great. Some of the lions tried to organize the lions to wipe them out but most took off after a giraffe herd. The lion never want fight cheetahs in a fair fight it wouldn’t give any animal. It never wants to find out what would happen. When it is chasing a zebra and sees a cheetah, the lion hides. It doesn’t gamble that the cheetah may be in the mood for a zebra and not watching for a lion.. If it hungry enough, a lion will eat the hyenas even if they does taste like crap. The birds are not liked either. They drink the water when they could drink from puddles even if the puddle was elephant piss. They also piss and crap in the water. It doesn’t actually change the taste of the quality of the water but it’s the thought that counts. The one safe place is the watering hole. There, nothing attacks anything except the gators and crocs. They get a pass since they live there and can’t sneak up on anything. They can’t eat grass so they get to kill but even they don't dare to screw around with an elephant. They can only eat monkeys. No animal cares about the monkeys. The monkeys have bad reputation as asses. They all need the water to live and the carnivores need to keep their food chain going. Animals have to drink someplace. Also, the elephant rules the hole completely and nothing screws with an elephant. They made it a rule that no hunting is allowed at the watering hole, except for the crocs feasting on monkeys. The monkeys are beat up regularly. Even the elephants will kick the hell out of them. Monkeys are asses everyplace. At the watering hole it’s “Monkey see and monkey not do.” The rhinos snort and bellow and generally make fools of themselves but they don’t mess with elephants. Every now and again one will get all ballsy and charge an elephant and find itself dead. Then the hyenas are allowed to eat it. The elephants want to keep a clean watering hole. One of the rules is no crapping in the water. The gators and crocs have to come out to crap. The elephant is very fussy about cleanliness. The elephant teaches its young not to crap or piss in the water although no animal will prevent it or complain. The elephant is nothing if not fair. The Great Apes are a little way off watching all this. They don’t have much else to do except pretend fight. But the watering hole is fascinating. Only a few of the animals there are a threat to them but they can’t go near the place. It’s water. Apes don’t go near water. They won’t walk thought an inch of rain. They drink from leaves and that makes them nervous. They can’t understand how these animals drink right from the hole. What if they fell in? Then what do they do other than die? Then there’s the crocs. An ape can kill a croc but it would be a real fight. Even from a distance the apes can see that crocs are all teeth. Animals can be really stupid, the apes think. They wonder about this meat eating. They wonder why some animals eat other animals. They have to find them and then kill them by sneaking up on them and running them down. Sometimes the hunted gets away and the hunter has to start over again. Why do that when there is all this fruit hanging there for the taking. No sneaking up on a banana. You don’t have to chase it. You just pull it off and eat it, Seemed simple enough to the apes. The watering hole has always been there and probably always will be. The animals may be on the way out. Mankind may be a heartless bitch as well.