If you can believe what you read, Hippos kill more people than any other animal in Africa. Why then aren't they listed in the Big Five? Is it just that they don't have the mystique of the top five? Hunters here and else where, seem to create imaginative and even fantastic views on how dangerous, animals like the Cape Buffalo, really are.

I'll find out for sure soon enough when I cross the pond next year but it seems to me the number of victims an animal has scored should be an excellent criteria for choosing dangerous game candidates.

I am pretty sure most of the hippo deaths are natives on/in the water. Not many from hunting.

I guess the question becomes, do Hippo live in more populated areas?

I suppose part of the reason why it is NOT included is because it is not generally dangerous to hunt hippo the way most do by braining it in the water. If wounded, the hippo is unlikely to charge out of the water looking for you but will most likely submerge and disappear. On land though, it is dangerous and should be considered part of the Big 6!

Hippo's are not as dangerous to "hunt" as the rest of the big 5. They are usually hunted while they are in the water. I guess the big 5 have their reputation due to the dangers in hunting them. There seems to be less danger in hunting hippo, but it is obviously dangerous to live amongst them.

Good luck!! I've never hunted hippo, but hope too someday.

Hippos are very emotional and dangerous but kill fewer people than lions and crocs where all three live together.

Barry Gaynor, who lives, on Lake Naivasha in Kenya tells me they currently kill about 30 villagers a year along the lake because the lake is surrounded by shambas and at night, when the hippos leave the lake to graze, there are often misunderstandings.

Most hippos are shot in the water for lion bait and when they are wounded in the water they normally do not leave the water and charge. I have had one leave the water to chase me that had been seriously wounded the day before by another hippo.

They will charge if wounded on land. I once had a client wound one at close range in very long grass. He was using a scope with a huge German objective lens. The distance from the rifle bore
to the crosshairs was considerable and the hippo was 10 to 15 yards away. He aimed under the ear but hit the jaw and the hippo turned and was on us in a flash. He was not much more that a meter away when he fell to a brain shot. I still remember his eyes blinking rapidly and his teeth gnashing as he hit the ground.

Injured hippos, bulls defending cows, and cows with calves often attacked my canoes. The bite the boats, bite the bamboo poles the fishermen use and in shallow water push waves over the side of the canoe as they jump at the canoes and this sinks themn.

I had one of my canoe polers killed by a hippo bull one day. The hippo followed our two canoes about 400 yards. He was missing one eye. He hit the second canoe, knocked the boy into the river, bit him through the chest and went underwater with the man for about 100 yards and then dropped him and left the area. the man had a tusk sized hole in the middle of his chest. He of course died.

Cows with young calves are very persistent when they attack a canoe. One day a cow with a calf attacked one of my canoes for five minutes eventually sinking it and dumping all the supplies and staff into the river. I had to shoot her or she for sure would have killed them all.

VBR,


Ted Gorsline

Addenda

Hippos do not have to be wounded to charge. Mostly they run away but sometimes if you irritate them or just look at them the wrong way its enough to trigger an attack. I have heard that they will attack people carrying lanterns at night but I have carried such lanterns alot in hippo country and never had it happen to me.

They attack canoes all the time. I have been in canoes hit by hippos at least 150 times. The key to survival is to use a big enough canoe.

I am constantly suprised to see people in parks going down rivers like the Zambezi in a Canadian canoes. They can flip a Canadian canoe into the air like it was a matchbox. I have been knocked from the back seat into the middle seat of a Canadian cane by a hippo bull.

I had another one chase us around four bends in the river just before dark before he caught up to us and hit the canoe.

I have often been poling along with the boys in a dug out canoe when there is a shout from the rear poler at the back of the canoe. I look around and there is this huge wave following us up the river. Its always a hippo bull running along after us on the bottom. It most case when you get 100 yards or so away from their cows they stop. But not always. Sometimes it is just a single bull in a bad mood.

For example, last year the villagers in Mofu began chasing a young hippo bull out of their fields at night. He didn't like being shouted at nor being pelted with chunks of mud so he began chasing them.

He got so touchy about it that he eventually began seeking out villagers whenever he heard their voices (even if they were not shouting at him)and chasing them anyway. Finally it got so bad the game department had to shoot him. It was easy to do. They just went into the fields where he had been feeding at night, began shouting, and along he came looking for them. So they shot him.

The males of most big game animals fight over the girls but they seldom kill each other. I have seen buffalo bulls fight but I have never seen one kill another. One usually routes the other and nobody get hurt. But hippo bulls frequently kill each other. They are extremely emotional animals. They think with their hearts and not their heads.


VBR,


Ted Gorsline

My good friend lives in Kenya and belonged to a duck hunting club around Lake Victoria. A young man whose Dad was a member was standing in the water pass shooting ducks when a hippo came up out of the water, bit him in the chest, and killed him.

My buddy was hunting there a week later and was walking in the footsteps of hippos with a shotgun and #6 shot. That is extreme duck hunting.

None of them are dangerous until they kill or maime you.

Look at what they can do on the video clip here:

www.nitroexpresssafaris.com

(click on the "PLAY VIDEO" button)

Mark Sullivan has one video of a hippo coming up out of a river or pond to charge. I don't know how he got it to charge. Irs very very rare for them to leave the safety of the water and come for a man on land even if they are wounded. The water is their security blanket.

VBR,


Ted Gorsline

Ted,

I know how he did it - I'll PM you..... let's call it a trade secret!

Watched his video preview on-line.....
First hippo gets provoked and they wait for the charge, instead of taking the shot when the hippo standing still was watching them...like the slow motion blood spraying from nostrils? extra dramatic... for great effect....Hmmmm

Second hippo, standing for a good deal of time without a shot...why? It was right there, and could be cleanly taken but was not?

From his site, refering to a hippo..."I found deep inside a snake- infested korongo..." Oooooo, 'snake infested', Mark you must be so brave pal. I hate those 'snake infested' thickets, what crap!!! What was he carrying for snakes, a 10/22 loaded with shot shells...no noI know, a .410 double...gives the snakes more 'honour in death'. He should write B-grade thrillers...

Whats the deal? Definately not my scene, I have very little respect for these antics...he may be a good shot with a double but I just don't like what he does one little bit....

Thanks Shakiri,

There is so much smoke and mirrors in the film business that I always like to know how these things are done.

VBR,

Ted Gorsline

Oh God, please don't let this turn into another MS thread!

Jeff Cooper once wrote that he consider hunting hippos in dry lands is one of the most dagerous games ,i also read that GANYANA said that waiting for hippos in dry land can be dangerous and exiting .Sometimes here we began to consider buffalos or pumas or wild boars easy game and thats one problems began in the last years two socalled puma experts were killed by the cats ,another preserve guard was killed by a jaguar ,and every year there are accidents with buffalos ,cebues and wild boars ,i m the surgeon and my family owns the biggest hospital in my area so i see the accidents hunting and in the emergengy room ,last year a farmer was almost killed by a feral cebu i operated him and hes recovering now ,i didt hunted hippos but i ll do it in dry land Juan

The Hippo - Excerpted from "Man is the Prey" by James Clarke 1969 - Former News Editor of "The Star", Johannesburg.

Can a Buffalo be provoked to charge the same way the guys in that video got the Hippo's all stirred up? Not that I would consider trying that crap (the guys nuts if you ask me) but I would like to know if a Buff could be so ill-tempered.

Ted Gorsline, Thanks for the stories. What is a Shamba, a hut/house?

Shakari, are you suggesting that flick was somehow staged and the charges all fake?

Juan,

You do know my freind that you can't chase them with the Dogo's and stick a pointy knife in it...

Sometimes I look at what you guys do with the pigs and thing you must be a little bit crazy.

Regards,
FB

Dear Ray Ray,

A Shamba is a small slash and burn farm usually about 3 acres in size made with hand tools by poor Africans.

Sometimes buffalo will charge with no visible provocation but it does not happen often. And you never really know what happened to them in their past.

My chief canoe poler Simon Chilimba got flattened by a buffalo that broke his leg and was shot off him. In a sense it was an unprovoked charge.

He was hunting with another PH and they shot one of two buffalo bulls that were travelling together.

One bull fell and the other fled. They spent more than an hour caping the bull they shot and then Simon put the buffalo head and cape on his head and marched back to the canoe.

The second buffalo was waiting for them and as they entered the long grass he flattened Simon. The PH whose name was Mark, shot the buffalo off Simon, and it ran off they never found it so its impossible to tell if it was wounded or not.

Ray Ray,

I'm not suggesting the charge Ted was referring to was faked at all....... just that I know why the Hippo charged from the water.

Come on Shakari, the suspense is killing me!

How did he do it?

Addenda

Hard to say because Mark is the only PH I know of who waits for wounded buffalo to charge. Most people try to kill them as quickly as possible right from the time the first shot is fired.

Virtually all the animals I have seen in his films could have been killed long before the charges ever started.

But I think that if you do what Mark seems to do and that is walk up to a wounded buffalo and let them see you, that some but probably not most would charge. Only he would know the ratio of those that would charge to those that don't.

It is fairly common to follow a blood trail and find a dead buffalo that has turned around and is facing his back trail and this means that he has had enough.

VBR,


Ted Gorsline

I'm real sorry, It's not something I'd do - but nevertheless but it's not my trade secret to give away.

Going back to Hippo, I remember many years ago I was taken out at night by the PH who trained me, to do some Hippo PAC and we crept along the river bank and then put a light out onto the adjoining land. As soon as we got an animal in the light it charged and we shot it as it came down the beam at us....... the problem is the others that you can't see. We did it a few times over the years (early 80's), but I haven't done it since the old fellah died. ... It's bloody hairy though and not to be recommended! - he used to be laughing his head off all the time we doing it.....

Aren't hippos (along with crocs) often added to the Big 5 (Lion, Leopard, Buffalo, Elephant, Rhino) and called the Big 7?

Dear Bulldog 563,

Book a safari with Shakiri and feed him a couple of double scotches around the campfire. You will get what you want.

Once he explains it to you the light bulb goes on. He knows exactly what happened - in detail.
Funny as hell. And it is smoke and mirrors.



VBR,


Ted Gorsline

Hippos and Crocs are added to the Big Five to make up the DANGEROUS 7, which should tell something about them. I would think the Big five came by way of designating the most glamourous of the big game but when it comes to dangerous you must include the Hippo and Croc.

If I remember correctly John Taylor describes a technique to provoke a hippo charge from the water in one of his books, most probably African Rifles & Cartridges. He described it as quite exciting, a classic example of understatement IMHO.