The Battle at Kruger
- Thread starter karrie
- Start date
That was an excellent video. If the Cape Buffalo learned from this, one would think these lions are going to get a bit hungry in the future. When the herd worked together the lions were hopelessly out muscled. I've read a lot about African wild life but seeing the herd take back their captured calf from the whole pride of lions was unbelievable.
Thanks Karrie
holy cow, that was good.
Call me a cynic, though, but the calf probably died of shock and/or infection anyway
Call me a cynic, though, but the calf probably died of shock and/or infection anyway
Yeah I thought as much. The lions chewed on the calf for quite a while and the crocodile also had a hold of it and that probably done some nasty damage. I was rooting for the buffalo even though I know that these are animals just doing what they do.
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Calf doesn't have much of a chance in the wild. Windmill on the horizon makes me think it's a game preserve so the calf will be better attended than people in Africa. If not, a hyena will have lunch.
Poor ol' croc lost out big time....
Wolf
Poor ol' croc lost out big time....
Wolf
Excellent video indeed.
Some things I noticed in the video is that it looks to be somewhere around mid day, not much for shadows so it's not the lions hunting time. They are laying down so probably they've fed not too long ago. It isn't an ambush as they lions are at rest so it's the buffalo walking into the pride unaware.
Once the gift falls into their lap the lions are quick to capitalize on the mistake. Naturally they go for the easiest catch and probably there were three lions really on that calf. One biting the neck, another holding it and a third moved to the back of the calf to secure it. At one point I think there are 7 lions around and on the calf.
Two crocs and one for sure got a pretty good purchase on the hind of the calf.
So the lions dragging the calf out of the water and the cops of the croc must have created some extreme force on that calf.
Probably the lion who was working the kill bite on the calf must have had the opportunity to really lock it in through all of that and must have damaged the calf's neck and throat.
But something striking is that once the calf got loose it made for the protection of the herd and as far as I could see, never limped at all.
Head was up in the usual manner.
So if the calf can have it's leg in the jaws of a Croc and be ripped from them by lions and walk away without a limp, maybe the neck and throat damage as significant as they must be, aren't lethal to the calf. Probably being what they are, they have a pretty robust immune system too so maybe infection isn't as big a factor as you might expect it to be after that action.
Something I've gotten out of this video is how rough it must be living in the boring old zoo.
Some things I noticed in the video is that it looks to be somewhere around mid day, not much for shadows so it's not the lions hunting time. They are laying down so probably they've fed not too long ago. It isn't an ambush as they lions are at rest so it's the buffalo walking into the pride unaware.
Once the gift falls into their lap the lions are quick to capitalize on the mistake. Naturally they go for the easiest catch and probably there were three lions really on that calf. One biting the neck, another holding it and a third moved to the back of the calf to secure it. At one point I think there are 7 lions around and on the calf.
Two crocs and one for sure got a pretty good purchase on the hind of the calf.
So the lions dragging the calf out of the water and the cops of the croc must have created some extreme force on that calf.
Probably the lion who was working the kill bite on the calf must have had the opportunity to really lock it in through all of that and must have damaged the calf's neck and throat.
But something striking is that once the calf got loose it made for the protection of the herd and as far as I could see, never limped at all.
Head was up in the usual manner.
So if the calf can have it's leg in the jaws of a Croc and be ripped from them by lions and walk away without a limp, maybe the neck and throat damage as significant as they must be, aren't lethal to the calf. Probably being what they are, they have a pretty robust immune system too so maybe infection isn't as big a factor as you might expect it to be after that action.
Something I've gotten out of this video is how rough it must be living in the boring old zoo.
I thought the same thing... it would have been a kinder fate to die with the crocs.
That was a pretty sound analysis. I just watched it again on the big screen and the Lioness that got hooked might take a serious injury away from this battle as well. It was a 450 lb cat and being thrown ten feet in the air on the point of a horn probably wouldn't do her a lot of good either.
Exactly what I thought too I just forgot to add that. Those kicks are lethal too. Tough animals though to say the least. Probably a different outcome if the lions were really hungry and out hunting in the evening or early morning.
Was that a young male lion I saw trotting off once the buffalo returned?
Didn't have a full mane but it looked a bit shaggier than the others.
It might have been a different outcome if the pride adult males had been around as well. There wasn't a big maned lion in the bunch. Females do the bulk of the hunting but the males would generally handled a kind of territorial thing like this was. I'm not setting myself up as any kind of super authority, but I have been hooked on African wildlife programing for many years
The young lion that trotted off before the big fight started was probably a young male. The big, belligerent bull that went after the lions first when the herd came back was likely the one that came trotting back through to throw that lioness in the air......He seemed to be looking for a fight.
by the way. A note for all north americans:
what you see in this video is a buffalo.
The things you have here are BISON.
what you see in this video is a buffalo.
The things you have here are BISON.
You are right Herman but I think this is a relatively recent thing. My family, going back to the American civil war and beyond called them buffalo. Bill Cody was called Buffalo Bill, not Bison Bill. Buffalo robes were called buffalo robes...etc. I would bet that if one followed the old migratory trail of the Bison down through the prairie states, you would find that most people still call them buffalo.
Otherwise known as North American buffalo.
Some things will always stay 'incorrect' simply because of the heritage behind them. Try finding Head-Smashed-In Bison Jump. lol.
The scale of that is lost until you see something like this and even then it's almost out of perspective as both animals are sizable creatures. Tossing that cat like a 20 pound sack of potatoes as though it's an after thought.
Then to think that there is a sport of climbing on the back of something like that and holding on for 8 seconds without getting killed. heh heh What a world.
I wonder what communications were going on between the cats and then the herd. That bull seemed almost to gather the courage of the herd up and got them to return for the calf. They seemed more confident as he raged into the lions and a few started backing off.
Really two very effective and intelligent tactics by the buffalo at once there. The phalanx and the raging bull. The questions that raised is first the learned behaviour to cooperate in the phalanx and the second what got the single bull so enraged? The mother of the calf I can easily understand, but to the bull, the calf would be one of many. So I wonder if it was instead of a territorial thing with the bull, it was more of a startled reflex long the lines of fight or flight response. Sure worked great!
Yes it did work well. Two or three years ago on National Geographic or Nova or one of those, there was a two hour special on a pride of lions and the local pack, group, whatever the collective word is for a bunch of Hyenas. Anyway......The females of the pride had brought down a wildebeest and the hyenas moved in and drove them off the kill and actually put about six or seven lionesses up a tree. Later, the males were back and when the hyenas got too close the big male lions killed a couple. Still later one of the big male lions ran the dominant hyena down on the open plain and killed her.
In Karrie's video, a couple of big males if they were there, might have pulled down another buffalo and that might have changed the complexion of the whole battle........maybe.....:-?
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It so amazing to look at nature and understand or hope to understand what's in play during these extraordinary events.
Years ago I watched NG in a study of wolves and caribou. The wolves had a system. They would anticipate the direction the herd was going to travel, and a large pack would split into a number of small groups of two or three. Then space themselves out in a specific pattern using the landscape to their advantage.
They would cut a small group out of the herd and chase them into the next pair of wolves who would pick up the chase, and in turn to the next pair and so on to run the Cariboo down to exhaustion, then simple kill the animal while it was too tired to fight off the attack.
Just the complexity and the fore thought of where to be and how to spread out and driving the Caribou knowing they would get it in the end even though the two who started the attack weren't in on the kill miles along the track.
I think what I found most interesting is that they understood the concept of cooperation and were cognitive of future eventualities. And all of it goes on right under our noses for the most part not even noticed until something spectacular comes along like the clip here to really bring it forward.
Yeah too many documentaries. heh heh
I don't know if I watched the program that you watched about wolves and caribou, but it sounds familiar enough that I probably did. There is something uncanny about the way wolves work together. There is an intelligent pattern there that is more than instinctual behavior.
The water buffalo in Karrie's clip definitely seemed to work together systematically to drive the lions off the calf. I don't know if that belligerent bull was the alpha male of the herd, or even if there is such a thing among water buffalo, but he was certainly making things happen.