Angry elephant chases hippo back into the water

7 months ago
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The video shows a hippo returning home to its water, only to be screamed at and chased into the water by an elephant not happy with its presence.
During the dry season in Africa, animals in the wild must endure a lot of hardship and challenges to survive. The biggest challenge during the dry periods is to find somewhere where there is still water while travelling big distances in search of food. The bigger animals like elephant and hippos can struggle even more than most other animals due to their size. These large herbivores must feed and drink daily to survive. Hippos live in water, so their shelters become under threat as well. During these high stress dry periods, elephants especially, become very aggressive and protective over the remaining resources of water and food. While all the wild animals must share the resources that are left, elephants in general do not like to share and become angry and agitated very quickly with other animals needing to get to the water. It was early morning during a safari in Zimbabwe, that we found ourselves viewing wild animals in a hide, overlooking one of the last remaining water sources in the reserve we visited. There were a lot of animals coming and going, with elephants being the majority. While watching a herd of elephants drinking at the watering hole, I noticed a hippo in the distance, slowly making its approach back to the water. Hippos will leave the water at nighttime to go and graze, returning to the water early morning where they will then spend their daylight hours resting and sleeping. The hippo looked tired, having to travel long distances during the night in search of grass to eat. This hippo just wanted to get back home, but the water was surrounded by elephants. I could see the elephants noticed the oncoming hippo, and when the hippo got closer, the one elephant thought it would let the hippo know it was not happy with the hippo’s return. The elephant suddenly looked angry and turned around. With a loud scream followed by loud trumpeting, the elephant cow made it clear that she was annoyed and angry, aggressively chasing the hippo back into the water. The hippo knew it had to get back in the water quickly and so it did. Once the hippo settled down in the water, the female elephant calmed down and there was peace again among all animals around the watering hole.

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