I just watched on Wild Kingdom this evening an episode Titled Buffalo Warrior.

Did anyone else see this? If so what is your thoughts based on it realistic or ? It was interesting, I wondered if there was more to it than what was shown.

I understood Cape Buffalo were not able to be tamed.

Allen

I watched that the other night. Very interesting, as far as I know, it looks to be legit.

One of the reasons RSA takes a strict view on their Buffalo; Hoof & Mouth, Bovine TB and of course Antrax. So does the USDA. The man has done some good things for Buffalo. Trying to keep them disease free is a monumental task. Cattle spread it; game animals can spread it; human's walking through infected ground can spread it (it's why you check the Customs form before you land back in the USA: Did you visit or hunt any farms, ranches etc? Any wild creature can be somewhat tamed if treated with enough kindness. But there's always the bad day.....you get stomped into a mudhole. Cheers to the guy, I'm glad to see him working for conservation. A lot of time and money goes into keeping RSA Buff disease free. Now we see why RSA Buff are a little on the expensive side.
LDK

The department of Veterinary Services have always maintained a small herd of "tame" buff in the Zambezi valley for research into nagama and tick borne diseases.

They have never really been tame! The cows, raised by man from calves are ok and can be dipped etc but the bulls...After several deaths amonst staff, one bull is kept for breeding purposes and the others have been castrated. they are still a handful but ok.

BTW- castrated buffalo grow some amaizing horns. One was measured last year at 58" (pitty about the Boss though)

Ganyana thanks for the info slightly off topic there was a farmer thst was trying to build up a tame herd of eland near masvingo before the land evasions and basicaly rear them like cattle did anything come of that.

Zee - several folks tried it, starting with Robbie Robertson in the late 1960's. National Parks set up an Eland breeding/ranching programme at Mushandike near Masvingo. Norman Monks (now snr Warden Mana Pools) was the last Ranger tec to command that project and it fell appart when Norman went off to University in 1995.

Basically, it worked. Every time. The problem was nobody seemed to be able to get arround the Vet department who wouldn't allow comercial sale of the meat. During my entire time in parks the Director of Veterinary Services, Stuart Hargreves would never consider any form of wildlife as a "reasonable" use of land. He hates wildlife and has initiated as many erradication programmes as possible - including the buffalo erradication programme in the mid 1980's where I really learned about hunting.

It is amaizing how much damage one individual can do.

Ranching Eland game a 30% increase in meat yield per hectare (2.2 acres) of veld compared to cattle and vacination/vet bill went down by 20% compared to cattle. They needed to be dipped as regularly as cattle if tick birds were not available.

Down side? You needed a 10' (3m) perimiter fense - minimum and internal fensing is merely a guidline to eland and when they get pissed off at the crush at the dip tank, you end up with broken fenses, broken eland and dead, dying or terrified staff. We alsways sent game scouts we wanted to resign to work at the eland dip tanks

Interesting comments as always from Ganyana. I never get tired of reading that kind of stuff.

Any comments on why there are so few cape buff in zoos in America? I visit every zoo I can (including many large ones) and I think I have only seen them one time in a smallish zoo...can't recall where.

I worked at the Fort worth Zoo for slightly over 24 years before retiring in 2006.

I heard from other people in both the zoo field and from people that handled hoof stock for stocking on private ranches, that most of the capes in America were sold and shipped back to various people if Africa.

Before I went to work at Fort Worth and for the first few years I worked there, many zoos I visited had small herds or family groups of capes, but for whatever reson they just gradually slipped away over the years.

At one time International Animal Exchange had a dozen or so capes at their facilituy in Grand Prairie Texas.

Every now and then, I hear rumors of various south Texas ranches that have a few on animals on them.

That's interesting. I lived in Ft. Worth for about 6 years and went to that zoo a number of times. It's an interesting zoo.

I'm flying back to Ft. Worth today as a matter of fact.

My mother in law of all people saw the show in question and called me. I was able to record it the next time it came on. I could not understand what changed him from hunter to breeder.

I think I saw a cape in the San Diego Zoo back in the fall of 05 or 06.

H kittle

There are a few Cape Buffalo at the San Diego wild animal park.

I watched it off/on. The man's name is Lindsay Hunt, a South African I think. He was a licensed, working PH who one day had to shoot a client's wounded bull who charged them. This was a turning point for him, from hunter to conservationist, as he was done with killing for sport. I reckon he'll still cull if need be. I'm worried that if he spends enough time hugging these "tame" buff that he'll be hurt or worse, killed.

Yeah, isn't some Texas ranch selling Cape Buff hunts or is that BS?

Can you say "future grease spot"?

Tame and Wild? Doesn't compute.

I remember seeing a clip on tv of a herdsboy among a herd of Cape buff some time back. I am sure this would have been the above mentioned Zim herd. I have always thought, what about the bulls, am sure I remember seeing a bull or two in the herd, and was amazed that someone could be walking around with a herd like that, especially with bulls! I know how aggressive cattle bulls can be, and even cows, especially when calving. I can imagine that they are never 'tame', and definitely not an animal to get on the wrong side of.

I believe eland are pretty easy to 'tame' or domesticate, but are also quite susceptible to ticks. Ganyana, I can imagine the 3m fence being a minimum, I know game farmers often complain about their eland straying onto their neighbours farms, where they are 'fair game' as such. I am sure they are completely resistant to nagana, and would like to see them being used instead of cattle in many impoverished, low carrying capacity areas. It is a pity about the tsetsi eradication as it was the wrong approach to shoot all the game and remove all the bush to deal with tsetsi-fly. In a way though, it must have been a hunter's or PAC hunter's dream.

With eland, obviously being mainly browsers would be beneficial to the land in many instances when there are other grazers too or much more so than cattle at any rate. For their size, it is amazing how they, and kudu can clear high fences without much trouble, but more impressively so for eland, being such heavy animals. As with any wild animal, it is not good to get them cornered or on the wrong side of them. I belive even duiker can rip you to shreds with their sharp hooves and little pointy horns if you try capture them. I think any wounded or cornered animal, especially a large one with sharp horns is not something to mess with. I suppose at the end of the day cattle are easier to control than buff or eland and will always be a symbol of weatlh in Africa. Wildlife comes second unfortunately in many cases.

Watched it in HD and it was incredible to see the buffalo in such detail.

Every large mammal that can be domesticated has been domesticated.

Cape buffalo cannot be tamed.

Every large mammal that can be domesticated is still an animal and may turn on you.


I have relatives that are into cattle. They have all been hurt at one point or another by cattle.

I assume everyone has seen the videos of Elephants hurting people.

White tigers biting magicians in Los Vegas.

There was another dog attack on the news tonight.

Sadly the Texas Longhorn was tamed. Look back in history and you will find they were very aggressive also. Everyone though they too were unable to be tamed. Now look at them....

Sadly the Texas Longhorn was tamed. Look back in history and you will find they were very aggressive also. Everyone though they too were unable to be tamed. Now look at them....

The only problem with your statement, was that in actuality, the long horn was never truly a wild animal.

They were simply feral cattle.

There were no cattle/hogs/horses in Texas or North America, until the Spanish brought them in the early 1500's.

Longhorns developed in their environment due to the conditions they were under.

It was just a simple matter to recapture them and put them back into a captive environment.

As some one else said, all of the large, and actual ALL animals that can be domesticated have been.

Yes, any of them can be dangerous no matter how far back their domestcated lineage goes.

Some animals lend themselves more to the process than others, and some will adjust to a point, but only a point, and successive generations will not advance beyond that point, they are too hard wired for survival.

As someone else stated, dogs bite, cats scratch, horses kick and bite, cattle kick and hook, and the list goes on.

I think people have had problems anytime they tried to domesticate a species that was not "viable". Some problems were immediate, some didn't surface until later but eventually it comes back to bite/kick/scratch you.

On the subject of unpredictability, I once read a survey of national zoo keepers and the vast majority stated that the bear was their most unpredictable tenant. I found that interesting.

Tame is a nebulous word...Even domestic bulls are damn dangerous, they will be pets then one day they will kill or maime the owner..

I have been mauled by our bulls over the years on two ocassions but fortunately they didn't get up against anything solid, thats when it gets really sticky...I have had many of them blow snot in my back pocket as I leaped over the corral fence.

I have seen a pair of Cape Buffalo domesticated prior to Texas law disallowing them, and they were pretty docile and nice to be around until one day these two bulls rolled the owners pickup about 50 yards with him in it..They were shot the next day...

I think it is foolish to believe any wild animal can be domesticated completely, and even more foolish to trust them.

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On the subject of unpredictability, I once read a survey of national zoo keepers and the vast majority stated that the bear was their most unpredictable tenant. I found that interesting.

Bears with pigs of any kind a close second.

In fact, for many years in most zoos, bears, especially grizzly/brown and polar, were to be put down A.S.A.P. if they escaped their enclosure, as were chimpanzees.

There was not even any thought of darting and recapturing.

It's nice what he's working to try and accomplish. But man I would not want to be that trusting.

From what I have seen or read most truly wild animals can and usually will have a bad day and when they do, if for no other reason than their size and strength can sure make it rough on their handler.

One of the parts of the program that I found the most surprising was his "taming" the wild heard and getting them to follow him into the capture pens.

Up until about 3 years ago I spent a lot of time working with Mustangs. It was always a bit interesting to get in a 45' corral with a 5 or 7 year old stud, especially if he had been a heard Sire. Some of them would rather fight than switch!

I used gentle training methods. But with Mustangs you generally need to be able to control their movement before you was accepted as the leader.

I can only imagine working with a Cape Bull. At least with the Mustangs once they were gentled they were basically just horses.

I was surprised that Cape buffalo could be gentled even as much as they were.

Did you notice the Zebra and Warthog hanging around when he was with the heard that was to be moved? It was some nice up close video of Cape Buffalos for sure.

Allen

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This was a turning point for him, from hunter to conservationist

I thought as hunters, we were conservationists.