A few years ago I found a pretty good sized but young and very dead hippo bull. I would guess he weighed about 3,000 pounds. He had apparently just been killed by lions but we had scared them off and they had not fed on him.

I could see new lion bite wounds variously on the carcass ,some still bleeding, but none that looked fatal.

However, we did not roll him over for a closer look as it was 3:30 pm and we wanted a lion so we hurriedly set up a blind.

We slept in the blind and the two lions came just after dark and fed. One had a lovely black mane and the other a good red mane. The red maned lion was easily identifiable because he only had one eye.

We shot the black maned lion at dawn and the red maned lion on the next safari. They were both in good physical condition. The teeth non the black maned lion were worn to nubs. He was very old. The red maned lion had both top fangs broken off. He too was very old.

I cannot remenber seeing any fatal wounds on the hippo not can I figure out how these two old male lions managed to kill the bull giben the poor shape of their teeth.

Any African hunters out there have any ideas? Can they kill hippos from shock alone? Very strange incident.

I figured maybe he had just been killed by another hippo and the lions had found him but the trackers said he had been killed by the lions.

I can't see how they can get a grip on a hippos enormous neck. Anyone seen lions kill a hippo?



VBR,


Ted Gorsline

Ted,

I am going to venture two scenarios..One the lion may hve jumped him and a bite into the brain not an immediate death but a killing bite...Other is he may have been challenged by the big herd bull injured lethally left the area and you found him as it collapsed..

Mike

quote:

Other is he may have been challenged by the big herd bull injured lethally left the area and you found him as it collapsed..

I have to go with this scenario, can't see how those two old males did the deed. It was more than likely on it's last legs when the Lions approached it.

Everything go ok last night Mike? You really didn't miss anything with the game commission!

Ted,

I suspect you did not notice any "other" lethal injuries that may have been caused by fightitng with another bull?

Would you think a lion may break a hippos' neck using his mouth and paws to "twist' it? I have seen this on buffalo but then a hippo is probably much stronger on the neck?

Sur eis a strange incident.

Dear Michel,

I did not notice any lethal injuries of any kind. Just a few bite holes here and there and they were dripping blood as if new. I did not see any slashes on the flanks that another hippo bull might make.

I must say we wanted the lion more than an answer to the question and we found the hippo at 3: 30 pm and it gets dark about 7 pm. So we hurried with building the blind and cutting as as inconspicuous a path for the bullet through the long grass as posible.

Other times I have seen the tracks of prides of lions join with the tracks of a big hippo that then showed blood on the trail where they tried him out and then finally where the tracks and blood trail led to a pool where the hippo escaped.

But in this case the hippo was freshly dead and in the possession of two tootless old male lions with no visible signs of major injuries. It looked like he died of shock but I doubt it.


VBR,


Ted Gorsline

We came across a cow hippo with a calf in the Selous that had been attacked by lions. Her back looked like it had been run over by a lawn mower and the calf appeared unharmed. It was mid-morning and the pair were about 3 miles from the safety of the river. The PH speculated that she was to weak to get back to the water. We never saw them again on the rest of the hunt. We speculated that the cow hippo was able to fend off the lions from her calf. We could see the claw/bite marks on the mother's back, but the lions couldn't get her off her feet to finish her off.

Needless to say it was kind of heart wrenching to see, we wanted to put her out of her misery, but couldn't - Mother nature is tough!

Ted, a couple of months ago I came across this hippo in the Western Serengeti. I have no idea what killed him, there didn't seem to be any neck wounds and only the ears, lips, hams and intestines seem to have been eaten. Hyenas maybe? What do you think?

.

Dear Wink,

I noticed that picture of yours and and replied to it once before. The most logical scenario in both cases is that they were both killed by another bull hippo and then found by the lions and hyaenas shortly therafter. That is the logical explanation.

The reason I doubt myself is because the trackers I was with said the hippo was killed by lions and were pretty good at nature interpretation.

I just wondered if there was another explanation?



VBR,


Ted

Dear wink,

I tried to send you a private message but it came back.I am going to try to sell that rifle on egun.de for 1,000 Euros.

VBR,

Ted

I have read that lions will hop on the hippos back to make them fall foward which breaks their necks with their own weight.

Dear Grettlerj,

That is very interesting. Do you remember where you read it? If true it could explain both of these hippos.

VBR,


Ted Gorsline

quote:

Originally posted by Widowmaker416:

quote:

Other is he may have been challenged by the big herd bull injured lethally left the area and you found him as it collapsed..

I have to go with this scenario, can't see how those two old males did the deed. It was more than likely on it's last legs when the Lions approached it.

Everything go ok last night Mike? You really didn't miss anything with the game commission!

That is my take as well! He probably had lethal internal enjuries, from being rammed in the belly by a large herd bull, and too weak to fend off the lions, but died from his earlier enjuries! Anyway, congratulations on the black mane lion, and the free bait!

Dear MacD37,

It was the only truly black maned lion I have ever seen except for one 15 years ago in a zoo in Arusha.

They really are rare.

Many have black rings around the mane but not many are uniformly black maned.

If it hadn't been for the vultures overhead that tipped us off to the dead hippo we wouldn't have even known he was there.

VBR,


Ted Gorsline

Alf's daughter probably has it closest. Many hippo die of anthrax every year. I am sure that was the case of the serengeti animal and there are regular cases in the Selous and similar areas. It doesn't seem to spread much but its always there.

Dear JTHunt,

The hippo looked quite healthy and was in an area where they had been poached and were nowhere near the carrying capacity of the area as seems to be the case in parts of the Selous.

When they get overpopulated the tend to lose condition and catch disease.

As regards to being killed by another bull it had obviously been killed about 3:15 pm because blood was still trickling from superficial wounds at 3:30 pm and most hippos fights take place at night.


VBR,


Ted Gorsline

...possible scenario: Female lions made the kill, and the old males ran them off before the girls could get tucked in.

JLS

Dear JLS,

I thought about something like that. This took place on a big island and there was a pride of females with two big males there. But from the moment we found the hippo we stayed there building a blind and then sleeping in it and never again left the place until the male was shot.

I figured that if the pride had killed it they would come back to feed at night but nothing showed up except these two old males. They were there all night.

Of course the pride could have killed it, left planning to come back and then bumped into a buffalo and killed it and stayed with it instead.


VBR,


Ted Gorsline

stab in the dark - could it be that the toothless one could have grabbed its throat and suffocated it without actually puncturing the skin??

butchloc,

You took a stab in the dark and IMHO you hit the light switch first time.

In good hunting.

Andrerw McLaren

Dear butchloc,

I don't know what happened which is why I brought it up. I wondered if lions had a way of killing hippos that did not entail using their teeth.

Ted Gorsline

ted - in my experience yes they do - a couple years ago when hunting leopard we had one sneak up about 50' away an then let us know he was there. In the middle of the night. SO yes at times they can scare you to death

This thread is going nowhere. I wonder if anyone out there has seen lions, even ones with teeth, kill a hippo and if so how do they do it.

VBR,

Ted Gorsline

Ted,

I doubt that lions could shock a hippo to death; the bull may have succumbed to an intestinal blockage or disease.

My OTHER theory is that some bumpkin tried to shoot him using a .45-70 Guide Gun and 'magic bullets', and hippo laughed himself to death.


George

There you go GeorgeS - get the .45-70 frenzy running again.

It was only for comic relief, I assure you!



George

what about heat prostration,what was the temp?lions could of easily kept him worked up till he fell over from overheating

Thats a good idea... Keeping him away from the water for long enough that he died from heat exhaustion.

quote:

Originally posted by ALF:
My daughter has the answer !

The GERMS got him

Smart kid! I think she has a point. Probably died from something other than a lion attack. I don't believe lions are above eating what they didn't kill. Especially two single males that are getting on in years.

Disease is possible but unlikely because the hippo looked to be in very good condition. The idea of heat exhaustion is interesting. This confrontation did take place in the middle of the day and hippos like to be in water then.

I have never seen lions kill a big hippo and wonder if anyone has even larger numbers of lions and lions with good teeth.

VBR,


Ted Gorsline

I think the heat exhaustion idea really has some merit. The Hippo could have colapsed and died. The tooothless lions were probably trying to get through the skin when you came up.

I don't think it would be very difficult for two lions to keep a hippo agitated and away from water for the required time.

Or maybe it was just old...When hippos die of old age do they leave the water to do it? Seems like they would stay in the water when feeling vulnerable.

It wasn't an old hippo. It was about 2/3 grown but the confrontation took place in the middle of the day.

It was freshly dead with dripping blood at 3:30 pm. Maybe killed between 2 and 3 pm. I looked at my watch because I wanted to know how much time we had to set up a blind.

Mostly both hippos and lions are active at night.

Hippos are on land in the day where there is much poaching, which there was in this area. Most hippos in this area stay in long grass in the day or in little papyrus swamps which dry up or even lie up in the forest. There are more on land than in the water.

Another reason they are on land at midday is because they have been wounded which is also possible.

Fish bite at their wounds when they are in the water and this drives them back on land.

VBR,


Ted Gorsline

Correction

I reading through the post I see where, in my first poat, I said the red maned lion had both top fangs broken off. That is incorrect. It was both bottom fangs. I have seen this same thing a few times. I think it happens when they try to drive their fangs into the spine of a buffalo and the buffalo starts to buck.

VBR,


Ted Gorsline

From various readings: Rarely is the fit adult hippo attacked by lions, even with large males present. More often, sub-adult hippos are said to be killed by breaking the neck via tripping it up at speed, using the animals' enormous weight to break its own neck or by jumping on the running hippos back and then suddenly pouncing on the head, driving it down between the legs with similar results. I suppose this makes some sense, as we read of tigers attacking heavy game in such a way that the weight of the falling prey often snaps the neck.

Dear Nickudu,

This tipping up of a subadult hippo at speed seems to be the kind of thing that might have happened to the aforementioned hippo if indeed such a thing really does happen. I wonder if anybody on the forum has ever seen it.

The hippos was large and heavy enough that it had the weight to break its own neck but it was not fully grown and it appeared to be healthy. In addition, the lions seemed too poorly armed to kill it with their teeth.

Do you have a reliable reference to this observation?


VBR,


Ted Gorsline

Define reliable in terms of African hunting. I have no notations .. wouldn't know where to begin looking. Upon reading your post, I found similar at the Kukuzan website: http://www.kukuzans.co.za/ba_hippo-hunting.htm but at the moment I'm getting a "cannot find server" message. - Nick

Thanks for trying Nikudu. The definition of reliable really depends on the author. If Selous said it I would believe it. If Capstick did I wouldn't be sure. If Farley Mowat said it I would know for sure that its a load of crap.

VBR,

Ted Gorsline

quote:

Originally posted by Ted Gorsline:
If Farley Mowat said it I would know for sure that its a load of crap.

Careful now, many of Farley's descendants are regular posters here.

This site alludes to the same killing technique: http://61.9.197.64/steyn/uploads/animalshtml/hippo.htm

"Despite their size, hippo are a favourite food of lion and are sent scampering for the safety of water whenever lion are about. It appears lion are able to kill hippo by jumping onto the running animal's back and pulling its muzzle down beneath its feet, tripping it and causing its tremendous weight to break its own neck."

Dear Nikudu,

Thanks. I was able to pull up the second site you sent but for some reason not the first. What bothers me about the second is, the author says, "it appears lions are-----." So he hasn't seen it but is likely left trying to deduce what they do after the fact having seen something like what I saw.

The he goes on to say, " The hippo is responsible for more human death each year than the crocodile."

That statement, without any supporting evidence, has been repeated over and over again in at least 20 books.

That is not my experince in Kilombero. Hippos chomped a fair number but crocs killed more and lions alot more than hippos.

VBR,


Ted Gorsline