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Moehlman calls it "a place of pilgrimage." Indeed, no place on Earth offers a more spectacular abundance of our fur-bearing, breast-feeding brethren, especially when the wildebeests are on the march. Local Masai women regard the dune as a sacred fertility site. We feel connected to her because she's a fellow mammal."
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Her brain may not work like ours, but I think there's pain. "She must be feeling emotion, but there's no way to prove it," says Patricia Moehlman, the wildlife biologist who has brought me to Shifting Sands, a 12-foot-high (3.5-meter-high) dune that is itself slowly migrating across the plain. Then, as if in frustration, she charges two jackals on the sidelines of the kill. A few yards away, ears twitching, the mother stands helpless. Within moments it falls victim to the jaws of the hyena. But the inexperienced fawn makes a panicky turn. The mother slows and moves evasively to distract the hungry predator. But a closer look reveals details of high drama.Ī young Grant's gazelle suddenly dashes between the clusters of wildebeests, followed closely by its mother. From a distance the movement seems a serene and constant march toward the southeast, where recent rains have made pastures greener. Others walk with the distended bellies of imminent birth. It is wildebeest calving season, and many of those giant bearded antelope have newborns trailing them. From the top of Shifting Sands dune in the Serengeti Plain of Africa a million mammals are in motion.