Battle at Kruger is an eight-minute amateur wildlife video that depicts an unfolding confrontation between a herd of Cape buffalo, a small pride of lions, and one or two crocodiles. The video was shot in September 2004 at the Transport Dam watering hole in Kruger National Park, South Africa, during a Safari guided by Frank Watts. It was filmed by videographer David Budzinski and photographer Jason Schlosberg.
After being posted on YouTube on 3 May 2007, Battle at Kruger received 21 million views and became a viral video sensation and was widely praised for its dramatic depiction of wildlife on the African savannah.[1] It became one of YouTube's most popular videos, with more than 60 million views and 79 thousand comments as of September 2011[update],[2] and won the Best Eyewitness Video in the 2nd Annual YouTube Video Awards.[3] The video was also the subject of an article in the 25 June 2007 issue of Time magazine,[4] and was featured in the first episode of ABC News' i-Caught, which aired on 7 August 2007. A National Geographic documentary on the video debuted on the National Geographic Channel on 11 May 2008.[5]
Contents |
Taken from a small vehicle on the opposite side of the watering hole with a digital camcorder,[6] the video begins with the herd of buffalo approaching the water. Upon seeing the lions, the buffalo flee and the lions charge and disperse the herd, picking off a young buffalo and unintentionally knocking it into the water while attempting to make a kill. While the lions try to drag the buffalo out of the water, it is grabbed by a crocodile, who fights for it before giving up and leaving it to the lions. The lions sit down and prepare to eat, but are quickly surrounded by the massively reorganized buffalo, who move in and begin charging and kicking at the lions. After a battle which sees one lion being tossed into the air by a buffalo, the baby buffalo—still alive, to the astonishment of the onlookers—escapes into the herd. The emboldened buffalo then proceed to chase the remaining lions away.[7]
Two veterinarians and animal behaviorists interviewed by Time assert that the behavior exhibited by the buffalo is not unusual. Dr. Sue McDonnell of the University of Pennsylvania (School of Veterinary Medicine)[8] said of the video:
"The larger herd is broken down into smaller harems, with a dominant male and several females and their babies. If a youngster is threatened, both the harem males and bachelor males—which usually fight with one another—will get together to try to rescue it."[9]
It is, however, rare for such events to be captured on film even by professional wildlife photographers. Indeed Dereck Joubert, a photographer and writer[10] for National Geographic said of the video:
"There is no doubt at all that the tourist who shot that scene [...] was unbelievably lucky. I mean, we would've considered ourselves lucky to have had that whole scene happen in front of us."[11]