Day 9: I heard them long before I could see them. The grunts and bellows of the hippopotamus herd had been unmistakable for half an hour as I picked my way over the marshy ground, trying to get closer to their watering hole. The whole area had been trampled all season to a churned mire, reaching far out to what had been the fullest extent of standing water during the monsoon. But now the water was mostly gone, shrinking the watering hole and putting a dozen two-ton, highly territorial animals into close quarters. They were crowded together, running out of water and space, and short-tempered. As soon as I could clearly see them, the big bull spotted me too. There was no hesitation -- with an angry snort he immediately started toward me. Thrashing and thundering out of the mud, he first came straight at me but then quickly turned the great bulk of his flank sideways in a classic threat display meant to demonstrate the full measure of his fearsome mass. This diagonal attack worked -- all I could see was a massive mountain of animal anger bearing directly down on me. I held my ground -- I couldn't have run back through that quagmire if I tried. The hippo bull thundered laterally across my path to cut off my approach, showing his imposing flank like he meant to build an enormous wall of flesh between me and the harem he was protecting. I tried to make myself small to show I wasn't a threat, and it seemed to work. I guess he felt I had been sufficiently intimidated (I was) because he broke off his sideways attack and, without breaking stride, thundered his way through a heavy U-turn and trotted snorting back to his herd.
- 6 ай бұрын
Surviving a Hippo Attack
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