one of the advantages associated with living so near the kruger national park is the fact that i know people who live in or have lived in the park. their stories are sometimes amazing.
just next to skukuza camp is skukuza village, an unfenced residential area for people who work in the park. before the 2000 floods a friend of mine lived next to the stream running through this village. (after the floods he lived slightly higher up) he told me such a riveting story. one night he and his wife were asleep. late that night a pride of lion mannaged to corner a buffalo in the river bed. they finally pulled it down and killed it, just outside my friend's bedroom window. he and his entire family lay awake, watching through the window while the lion ate their full, occasionally having to chase off the constantly pestering hyenas. he assures me the entire thing is a noisy affair and you can pretty much forget about sleeping.
what an amazing story!! who would want to sleep anyway?
I was thrilled to see deer (mother and fawn) while walking my dogs this morning. My sister has video-taped a mother fox and her three cubs that live on the bluff behind her home. We love all this. Can't imagine seeing what you have described so "up close"! Wow!
ReplyDeleteI always lived in big cities, so except for the occasional snake didn't see much wildlife. We did have a crocodile end up in our yard once. He was a baby about 40cm long, who'd wandered up from the nearby swamp. Naturally, to a kid, this was really exciting. We threw water on it to keep it cool, and took it to the local zoo.
ReplyDeleteEarly this am I saw a news show which referred to vacation footage of lions pulling down a buffalo calf at waters edge, dragging it off the bank to escape an opportunistic crocodile, only to have the entire buffalo herd come back and confront the lions. Amazingly the calf jumped up and rejoined the herd as the lions eh, er, surrendered.
ReplyDeleteDon't know if this link works but you may go to youtube.com and search for Battle at Kruger
http://youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM
Simply amazing footage.
make, yes i've seen that footage. very good. there is another video called swamp cats. it is about the lions of the ocovhango delta. there the buffalo regularly drive the lion off. very interesting. that country (botswana) also has the only recorded pride of lion that regularly hunt elephant. how impressive is that?
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