Yes 30cal,s a bit light as a stopper, still better than your bare hands lol !

What the heck was your PH doing , or self guiding eh ?

Speaking of the dangers of the bovine family!!!

Just in on the news http://www.stuff.co.nz/busines...n-and-saves-his-life

quote:

Originally posted by eagle27:
Speaking of the dangers of the bovine family!!!

Just in on the news http://www.stuff.co.nz/busines...n-and-saves-his-life

From the report "There were 4350 ACC claims nationwide for injuries related to cattle in 2015, and $6,609,740 was paid out to cover those incidents."

Makes me ask "how many water buff claims are there every year"?

Then there are the incidents that dont get reported. Which will be a majority.
Had five ribs broken one time By a beast, and most farmers wont go to doc for ribs etc as nothing much can be done so waste of time.
Been thrown over fences, had to run many times. Cattle are cattle and the less they see people the worse they get when you put them under pressure or threaten their territory.

We had a worker thrown the other day by our bull and spend several days in hospital. And that was a common stock Bull, not a wild buffalo with big horns that they know how to use!!!
Last trip up north we saw a Young bull come out of nowhere and smash a dying old trophy bull right in front of us.
I always prefer to carry a 40+cal when up close to buffalo!

quote:

Originally posted by Sarg:
Yes 30cal,s a bit light as a stopper, still better than your bare hands lol !

What the heck was your PH doing , or self guiding eh ?

Long story but the guide was elsewhere.

Never been charged by a Water buff, know some folks who have..

Been charged 2.5 times by Cape Buffalo, Howcome 2.5 well the last one was wounded pretty good go our wind and came for us, but I stopped him cold at about 30 yards..The other two were the real deal..ONe of which I was the observer and the hunter made a bad shot breaking the jaw, and the buff got mad and charged, the PHs double rifle was empty and when he quickly loaded it he near cut a round in half and jammed his gun, the hunter was froze, I shot right off the end of my barrel and the bull pushed mud over the hunters feet..

To determine these animals are over rated can be your death nel..Any bovine when stressed can be deadly, just like a Rodeo bull or a tame Dairy bull they all kill a few folks every year. Same with elephant, Lion, and Hippo, not to mention crocs..and until you've had one on top of you, it may seem hard to understand..

More than a few folks including some PHs are hurt or injured every year to one degree or the other...On Saeeds last hunt Richard and his client from texas stumbled on a cow buffalo with a wire trap on her foot, she knocked them both down, and skinned them up a bit before they got her killed, she was on the prod..ya never know what fate has in store for you, your here one minute and gone the next..If this were not so, I would never hunt buffalo or DG again. Most of those charge movies you see are real..I know more than a few PHs that have been bounced around and a bunch that been chewed and clawed up by Leopards..I know of PHs and tourists that have been turned to liquid by elephants, killed by Lions..We usually hear about it on AR from someone..

The one constant on Safari to have this happen is generally poor shooting.

dont forget the Zee horses

http://www.news.com.au/technol...686b1571f49d38d71a78

Rays right on beef being hungry for human meat!
We had a stack of clubs all around the corrals when we raised brahmas when I was a teen. A couple of 'em we even milked! Re: Stretched between shed poles on a rope! Nose snubbed up on the other end. Pulled their hind feet out from under 'em and leaned over their sides to do the milking to feed their calves they refused to let suck. Oh yeah, lotta fun!

Had the "old red cow" missing a week. Dad found her down in a gully nearly dead, she'd had a calf and it had sucked then fell in a deeper hole. He went down to put a rope on her to pull her out with a horse and she started chasing him, about the second lap he stepped aside and pushed her over, she couldn't get up. He got the calf and carried her out on the saddle. I got the calf for bringing them back to decent condition. Red showed her appreciation by charging shoulder deep thru an oak barn wall trying to get my buddy Bill walking by on the other side. Since she dropped such great calves every year we kept her around. Same with Slash. Raven black with a lightning streak white slash across her face. She's the one I "enjoyed" milking most!

Then there was the "big white bull". Charlais. Stood several inches taller than my 6'1". He was in a patch of brush with 4" limbs over knee high and refused to move with the rest. Wife and I drove up as Dad was moving them and asked me to get that bull for him. I tried several ways to make him move and he wouldn't budge. So I waded in face on about 5-6'. Bull lowered his head and growled at me. Just one of those instant reactions. I threw my cap and hit him between the eyes so hard my wife heard it pop from 40yds away. The bull reared up and spun, ran right on down the road past the herd and Dad. Funny thing about learning after the fact.

Half mile down the road as we followed the bull into the corral Dad told me: "Watch that bull, he'll take you". HUH?? He couldn't believe I'd out bluffed him.
A couple days later he DRESSED OUT, 1800lbs. Hey Ray, don't they say about 50%?

Makes that "500kgs bull sound like a baby calf!

George

Haha, classic story reminds me of one of my own.

I had a Blond Aquitaine bull once, the thing was huge and unlike most big bulls it could leap. It cleared a 5 and a half foot cattle yard a couple of times. Anyway it was as trustworthy as a bull can be but it used to go apeshit crazy at the sight of a horse.
One day we were riding back home from a pighunt, 3 of us all on horse back and this bull meets us in the middle of a narrow track that ran around a cliff and starts to bellow and paw and froth at the mouth and advance on us and we dont really have room to turn in a hurry.
Bit of panic setting in amoungst the guys but I know this bull so I jump off the horse as he bellows and run straight at him. The bull gets one hell of a surprise and turns and disappears around the corner with me in hot pursuit. I stop and walk back nonchalantly to see my two companions looking at me like im mad. I jump back on the horse and say calmly, "That bastard it lucky I didnt catch him!"

When doing comparisons and using statistics to do so the first rule is to ensure apples are compared with apples.

While statistics may show that more people are injured or killed by the Cape buffalo in Africa than people having similar encounters with Asian buffalo in Australia I'm 100% sure that there are vastly more people inhabiting the areas where the Cape buffalo roam in Africa therefore there will be more encounters between people and buffalo.

The Northern Territory of Australia where the Asian buffalo roam is very sparsely populated therefore very much less encounters between people and buffalo.

Many of the adverse encounters in Africa involve unarmed people going about their business of living on the land. Very few indigenous people inhabit the Aussie buffalo territory and most others will be farming, hunting or touring and travelling in vehicles.

More pertinent to the OPs question is how many armed hunters are attacked and injured or killed by either species of buffalo. After all as I mentioned in my earlier post, a buffalo presents no danger where it is shot and killed and even a large percentage of wounded buffalo actually present no danger as they invariably run away. Most of the video we see of African buffalo hunting bears this out with very few charging.

Far fewer hunters hunt buffalo in Australia therefore it would be expected the incidence of reported buffalo charging will be correspondingly low. That they do charge under some circumstance is without doubt. Personally if charged by any buffalo I would be more afraid of the Asian species because of that wide spread of horn, there would be little chance of escaping a hook from those horns if trying to jump sideways at the last moment

If you are a confident shot and can place your bullet well the question of danger doesn't really enter the equation when hunting either species, or any animal for that matter. I agree with a previous poster and it is something that can create an impression of danger and raise the adrenaline level is the habit of the Asian buffalo to stick their nose in the air if they spot you, stand their ground or walk towards you as if to say, "close in if you dare".

There are millions of Asiatic WB`s around the world,wild and farmed and in the most populated areas and of course there are fatal incidents but not ever on a scale of the incidents with the Cape B.
They are simply very different beasts in their own nature and for those suggesting that the two species are equally as 'bad' is simply erroneous.
One is a tameable animal the other is not,at least not with the trust humans can rely on with the AWB.

As the OP asked the question on this forum we have to assume he is meaning the dangers of both species from the point of view of hunting, therefore we need to compare the traits of the animals in the hunting areas. Not buffalo that have been raised for generations among people in Asian villages. The Asian buffalo that are hunted in Australia are generations of animals that have been born and matured in the wild.

There are enough videos on line showing most species of animals we label as dangerous able to be domesticated enough to cohabit with humans albeit not every tom dick and harry but with their trainers and close associates; lion, tiger, even normally dangerous and poisonous snakes. If they have been raised in human company they will display tame habits. Of course as you point out even among animals such as the Asian buffalo that have been raised and cohabit with humans accidents do happen.

I go back to comparing apples with apples, Asian buffalo born and raised for generations in the outback of the Northern Territory and African buffalo also born and raised in the outback of Africa.

As far as the hunter is concerned both species are wild, they are not domesticated and never have been in the hunting areas.
Even Hereford cattle will quickly display aggression after they have been wintered over in blocks away from human habitation and any that actually escape from these areas and live away from human intervention for a couple of years can become extremely dangerous animals. I know both these scenarios from personal experience.

Taking the traits of Asian buffalo living around villages in India or Vietnam and applying them to the wild Asian buffalo in the hunting areas of the Northern Territory is just not realistic.

I don't claim that one species is more dangerous or any less dangerous than the other as the statistics that get quoted are so far out of kilter it is something that can't be absolutely determined.

10,000 people living in buffalo country and 5 get killed every year is a fatality rate of half a percent. Apply that same fatality rate to 2000 people living in buffalo country and you get 1 person killed per year. It doesn't mean the buffalo are less dangerous, just less people who come in contact so less killed.

Go back to my original post, you cannot just compare the danger factor of the two different species of buffalo by comparing numbers of fatalities or injuries, different number of people either indigenous inhabitants or hunters coming into contact with the buffalo in the different countries.

yep taken onboard. However the genetic traits of the two different species are on record historically,one as an intractable bastard when it comes down to farming/human interaction and the other lends itself to being an animal of the yoke.
No doubt a bad tempered bull of any species can be bad,but the baddest happens to be the Cape Buff and comparing them as to size is one thing but comparing them as DG is certainly another.

Our buffalo are absolutely dangerous, potentially, but most encounters are safe at typical rifle distances. Getting into longbow distance, accidentally or deliberately, should never be taken lightly. I have made mistakes that really worried me, but got lucky. I've solved a few tricky buffalo problems with an assortment of rifles, and seen other blokes do a bit of problem solving too. Buffalo do present a real danger here.

All that said, it's nonsense to talk our buffalo up, saying they're super aggressive (and I don't think anybody here is); and it's a mistake to underestimate them (been there, done that).

Yes sir, the bovine of any kind will getcha, a dairy bull that's a pet will watch you and if he can get you between him and a big post or wall that when he will try to kill you..LOts of farmers injured or killed every year by domestic bulls..

We raised Branhmas and Beef master calltle and more than a few Brangus, and Ive had a hell of lot of snot blown in my back pocket as I piled my carcass over the top rail!!

When cattle are stressed, time to be careful, not afraid, just be on your toes..

As to Cape Buffalo, some places where the buffalo are chased every night by Lions, the bulls and cows get ornery as hell and prone to charge whereas in low lion population they tend not to charge, as basically cattle are not preditors they are escape animals. On high fenced ranches where buffalo are hunted hard they get wild and mean..So inviorment has a big hand in animal behavior..

I found out years ago on my first buffalo hunt in Zimbabwe, if you know domestic cattle, then you are already a pretty good buffalo hunter..They ain't nothing but a cow. and that bad ole bull was raised on milk..no problem killing one!! NOT

Hell Ray, what haven't you done?

We mainly had Herefords (or hur-fords, as they call 'em in Wyoming) and Murray greys. The Herefords were OK except for a horned cow with a growth on her eye, which charged my mother in the garden when Dad was taking the cow past to the yards for shipment. Mum was in her dressing gown (red, as it happened, though cows probably can't tell) but stepped behind some high sweet corn and escaped. After Mum sneaked inside, the cow ran around the house, looking for her in all the windows.

She was also nearly run over by two Angus bulls that had escaped from the next-door station's stockmen and into our yard. She was at the back garden gate bringing in firewood when the bulls saw the opening and charged through, one going each side of her.

The Murray Greys were most-docile animals, even though bred from 90% Angus ancestors. We didn't even need horses to herd them and my sister used to sit on the back of one bull. Dad reckoned Jersey bulls were the worst, and it seems to me they look very much like Spanish fighting bulls.

As to cape buffalo, I read in a book from the late 19th Century that said they were so belligerent they only needed to see a man to charge him. I think by the time I got over there the extra-savage blood line may have been shot out.

quote:

Originally posted by Atkinson:
Yes sir, the bovine of any kind will getcha, a dairy bull that's a pet will watch you and if he can get you between him and a big post or wall that when he will try to kill you..LOts of farmers injured or killed every year by domestic bulls..

We raised Branhmas and Beef master calltle and more than a few Brangus, and Ive had a hell of lot of snot blown in my back pocket as I piled my carcass over the top rail!!

When cattle are stressed, time to be careful, not afraid, just be on your toes..

As to Cape Buffalo, some places where the buffalo are chased every night by Lions, the bulls and cows get ornery as hell and prone to charge whereas in low lion population they tend not to charge, as basically cattle are not preditors they are escape animals. On high fenced ranches where buffalo are hunted hard they get wild and mean..So inviorment has a big hand in animal behavior..

I found out years ago on my first buffalo hunt in Zimbabwe, if you know domestic cattle, then you are already a pretty good buffalo hunter..They ain't nothing but a cow. and that bad ole bull was raised on milk..no problem killing one!! NOT

A friend of mine sitting here says "cows are very dangerous. Whether they two legged or four legged"