Ladies and Gentlemen,

This story is also from the book FOURTEEN YEARS IN THE AFRICAN BUSH; by Anthony S. March, published by Safari Press, ISBN 157157101-9

"A message from the destrict officer asking me to look into a report that a man had been killed by a hippo was definitley genuine. Chief Kasina showed me to where the accident had happened, and the grisly spectacle of intestines 8 feet up a tree, where the hippo had sideswapped the hapless victim, greeted us upon arrival. It appeared that the man was sitting on his veranda just at dusk and had seen what he thought was one of his neighbours cows in his maize shamba. He took his stick and cave the "cow" a whack with it, at which a second hippo appeared and instantly attacked him, with fatal consequences.

I asked the locals where the hippo laid up during the day. Shouldering my rifle, I followed the path along the river, expecting to have both a long walk and difficult task in sorting out which hippo was the cause of the trouble. This time I was wrong. The chief, one or two locals, and I had not gone far when from a bend in the path a hippo came straight for us. Contrary to general belief, hippos are both fast and agile when out of the water. I only just had time to swing my .404 into position before the enraged hippo was upon us. Whether by good luck or acute judgement I shall never know, but my bullet penetrated its brain, killing it instantly. The bull was so close that I would not have had time to get another round in the chamber. When it came for us, its mouth was wide open, so I had to shoot through the roof of its mouth! (I later likened the mouth on this hippo to two dustbins (trashcans to those who do not know the Queen's English lids full of teeth"

I would like something "almost" that exciting to happen during a hunt.

Some people still think they will not harm anybody

Last year in Zim I spent some "time" cooling my heels at a camp on the banks of the Zambezi near the corner of Zim, Bots, Namibia and Zambia.

Three of us were going for a cruise to catch the sunset and just after leaving shore we spotted a hippo coming at "full tilt" down the bank and it seemed as if he was charging a black fisherman fishing on the bank. Luckily for this fellow the hippo swerved at about 20 metres and splashed into the water about 10 metres downstream.

We had yelled warnings to the fisherman and he didn't even know the hippo was coming. He didn't seem overly concerned. Just another day I guess.

We would have walked within 50 metres of the hippo on the path to the small dock. Infact the bush is only 100 metres or so wide between the lodges and the waters edge and never knew it was even there.

I tell you, even if you were armed with a .700 and brain shot that hippo if you were in its way it would have cleaned you up. So fast and with considerable momentum it had as it ran down the bank.

PS The lodge had tried to establish tourist canoe safaris but "experts" whom tested the waters in the area, found the hippos a little too "cheeky" and gave the idea a big non-commercial thumbs down.

I believe I read somewhere that hippos kill more people than all other African DG put together.FYI,Mark Sullivan has a video where he drops a charging hippo 10 feet from him with his 600 N.E.That man has gigantic b**ls.

Gentlemen

That is a really close encounter with a hippo. Is it true that hippos smell awfull and has a bad temper? I read that hippos kill more people than any other animal in Africa.

I thought first that it was one on Saeed pratical jokes with Waltherhog, when Walther were taking a bath

/ JOHAN

[ 02-06-2003, 00:43: Message edited by: JOHAN ]

My understanding is that Hippos are the number one killers in Africa among herbivores while crocs are number one overall. But then, if you're the one getting killed, does it really matter?

I think that death by hippo would be a little faster than death by croc.