Cape buffalo makes one of the most unconventional escapes ever.
Every day is a life-or-death struggle in South Africa's Kruger National Park. Tourists capture some pretty crazy nature scenes every day. Today's video is another example. The cape buffalo is one of the toughest animals on the planet, but even that does not make them immune to lion attacks.
In this video, a cape buffalo finds itself under attack from a small pride of lions right next to the road. It's not looking good for the buffalo as the lions continue to sink their teeth and claws into the buffalo's flank.
This traditional nature scene has a most unconventional ending when the battle for survival spills into the roadway and the buffalo nosily crashes into the back of a tourist truck. One cannot get much closer to wild nature than this!
This was the buffalo's lucky day. The truck full of tourists was in the right place at the right time to make the unexpected save. Looks like the lions will have to wait a bit longer for their dinner. Usually in this scenario, as soon as the lions gets hold of its prey, it's not getting away.
That may have been an unconventional escape, but it worked. The buffalo's horn crunched the taillight into tiny pieces and made a noise loud enough to scare the lions off their attack for a moment. That moment was just long enough for the buffalo to find an opening and beat a hasty retreat out of there.
We did not see the end of the chase, but it appeared the buffalo put enough distance between itself and the lions to get away. Albeit with a few scars, but also probably a lesson on avoiding ending up another link in the food chain in the future.
For more outdoor content from Travis Smola, be sure to follow him on Twitter and check out his Geocaching and Outdoors with Travis YouTube channels.
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