It has always seemed to me that the best strategy for a herd animal (ie. Zebras) being hunted by a small group of predators (ie. Lions) would be to attack. A pride of a dozen lion against a herd of a thousand Zebras wouldn’t stand a chance. One or more Zebra might die but after a few zebra herd encounters there wouldn’t be any lions left.
Or lions would learn to leave the herds alone. It's amazing to me what evolution figures out (reindeer cyclones) and doesn't figure out (counterattacking zebra herds). The second one seems to me to be easier to conceptualize and understand for relatively low IQ herd animals, yet that behavior was never discovered by them. Which must mean understanding has nothing to do with it. It's just random responses until one response works and sticks.
The problem is that lions are ambush hunters and so they dictate the terms of the engagement. If the Zebras had a higher percentage of bad-@ss stallions a counter-attack might be possible.