Elephant bull shows wildebeest he's boss of the local watering hole

The video shows the hilarious sighting of a grumpy elephant bull chasing away a lone wildebeest from a watering hole with its trumpeting noises and water throwing skills, using his trunk like a hosepipe.Show more

The African elephant is the largest land mammal on this planet and they rule the African landscape with their sheer size. Elephants also consume the most food and drink the most water on a daily basis of all animals in the African wild. During the dry season, water resources become very limited, and this seems to get elephants on edge when it comes to sharing any water resource with other animals. While on safari in the Kruger National Park, we came across a classic example where an elephant bull behaved in a manner that showed he was clearly not prepared to share a small watering hole with a lone and very thirsty wildebeest. It was a scorcher of a day at thirty-eight degrees Celsius and the animals were thirsty. While this lone elephant bull was drinking water, the lone wildebeest appeared and casually went to the opposite side of the water to have his drink, not even looking or acknowledging the elephant bull. The elephant bull stopped drinking and stared at the wildebeest that just pulled in for a drink. This was where the real funny bit started.

The elephant bull gave the wildebeest bull one more look and to our surprise, the elephant bull sucked up some water in his trunk and sprayed it in the direction of the wildebeest while uttering a loud trumpeting noise. The wildebeest got a fright and moved off a little. The elephant bull clearly wanted the wildebeest further away from the water and repeatedly used his trunk like a hosepipe to throw water at the poor wildebeest, while making his intimidating trumpeting noises. The wildebeest decided it was better to get away from this old grumpy bull elephant. While this was so unexpected and funny to watch, one question remained with us: “why did the elephant bull chase off the wildebeest, who politely went to the opposite side, away from the elephant to drink in peace?” While there might not be one clear answer for that question, our summary to why the elephant did this was purely because he can.