Video: Aggressive Hippopotamus Surfaces Behind Boat

F irst it was elephants attacking cars in Thailand. Now we have an aggressive hippopotamus in Kafue National Park in Zambia which surfaced dangerously close to a tour boat operated by Michael Varndell — a tour guide with Malawian Style Safaris/South Luangwa Safaris — from within Lake Kariba.

“Nothing like getting too close for comfort… great footage by Craig Jackson in Chobe Park with Pangolin Safaris”, Varndell posted on his official Facebook Internet web site, which also includes a video which shows the boat suddenly speeding away just as the hippopotamus surfaces right behind it thanks to the quick thinking of the operator who gunned the engine at the last minute.

As I am not a member of Facebook, Ben Hooper of United Press International, Incorporated provides a link to the Facebook Internet web site of Michael Varndell — which contains the video — in this article.

I am still going to Kenya in a few weeks; and I still intend to post reports of that trip here at The Gate — and yes, I still have reports yet to post from my unintentional trip around the world.

Neither elephant nor hippopotamus nor heat nor gloom of night will stop my wanderlust from the successful completion of my voluntary travels…

  1. I always find it interesting when animals defend their homes, yes, people are in their habitats a.k.a. their ‘living room’, they animals are the ones being ‘aggressive’ or ‘attacking’. If someone you didn’t know was wondering around your home and you did the same, it would be called defending oneself. When people invade wildlife’s territory for their own amusement, yes, it really is just amusement, they are usually the ones to blame. We already lock up animals in prison, yes, zoo’s are prisons, to die in concrete enclosures so that we can gawk at them and make the perform in circuses, which both for some reason make the sick human mind smile with enjoyment, and the animal rebels they are shot dead or electrocuted to try and ‘tame’ them again. If animals are ‘attacking’ on safari’s or in sanctuary parks, the problem is humans, not the animals. Safari’s need to operate to avoid cause distress on the animals. If these things are happening, they are not doing so. Do people stop and think about this? No, they grab their cell phones and video tape it and post it online and recall the time they were ‘attacked’ and how brave their were to live through such an experience or how lucky they are to be alive. Not once thinking about what their actions or participation in the activity in which they had this experience might be having an affect on the beings that call this place home.

    1. Ah, yes free the hippos! Actually they are the most dangerous African animal, which kill more humans (many of them poor people just trying to eke out a living) than any other African animal.

      1. I understand that hippopotami kill more humans than lions, leopards, elephants, leops, buffalo and rhinoceroses combined, Stephen

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