A roaming male lion attempting a water crossing found himself in hippo-infested water and had to scramble for safety on a rock; he needed to get back to land, quick!
Kruger National Park, South Africa (15 March 2023) – The internet has been left in awe of a video that is busy going viral. A sighting from South Africa’s Kruger is showing just how scary a hippo can be – even a male lion got the fright of his life.
30-year-old Steyn Jacobson shared the footage with LatestSightings.com and was left in awe of it. They couldn’t believe what they were seeing. While on a tour with South Post, a guiding company, they stopped at the river for some coffee and noticed the agitated hippos.
“We started off with a quiet morning, so we went down to the river for our morning coffee stop. So that the guests can enjoy the view, as it was my last drive with them. Always looking around for something, I saw the hippo’s strange behavior. As we watched, the hippos grew increasingly agitated and started to circle a rock, clearly unhappy with it.”
Lions and water typically don’t mix well, as lions are not great swimmers and are often hesitant to enter bodies of water. So seeing this male lion stuck on a rock in the middle of the river is a truly unique sight.
“Looking through my binoculars, I saw what appeared to be a male lion. Stranded on the rock, surrounded by tons of angry hippos All of a sudden, a big hippo went for the lion, and the lion had no choice but to jump off and into the water. At the end, another hippo went for the lion, but luckily, he missed it. As we later discovered, the male lion we saw was a young nomad, not one of the dominant males in the area. Male lions typically defend a specific territory, but young males often roam around until they establish their own territory. It was clear that this male lion had wandered into the wrong territory, and the hippos were not going to let him off easily.
“For anyone lucky enough to witness a rare sighting like this, my advice is to take it all in and savor every moment. These moments are fleeting, and you never know when you might witness something truly special in the wild. Guests always ask us what’s the rarest thing you’ve ever seen, and this is at the top, a very unique sight indeed.”
Take a look at the hairraising sighting below.
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