Africa. Caught in the middle of a big herd of Cape Buffalos, our guide advises us to be still. There are hundreds of them and they just appeared out of no where. These animals are 6 feet tall, weigh 1,500 pounds and can run 35 miles an hour. Sit still, really!
African Buffalos are considered one of The Big 5. I have often heard the term, but wasn’t sure what it meant. Big game hunters coined the phrase to reflect the ferocity of a group of animals when hunted. So we have the lion, elephant, leopard, rhino and cape buffalo making up the Big 5 and luckily today, most of the hunting is done with a camera.
Although we know the hippo is the most dangerous animal alive, some experts consider the Cape Buffalo to be even more dangerous than the hippo as it kills more humans, on average, a year. And here we are, in the middle of them, in an open jeep. Yikes.
Since a wounded Cape Buffalo is one of the few known animals that will purposely circle back on their own trail to lie in wait and hunt their pursuer, its a good thing we were only watching them. I wonder how they learned to do that? Pretty smart. Another of life’s many fascinations.