Hippo chasing man

Back in 2006, I was on safari with some friends in Murchison Falls National Park in Uganda. We had just crossed the Nile, on our first day, on our way to the game lodge, and were waiting for friends in a second vehicle to catch up.

We had noticed a hippopotamus grazing in the long grass by a dirt road up ahead, and, whilst interested that it seem unconcerned by the vehicles and people by the river crossing, were not too bothered by it.

What appeared to be a park ranger or game warden, with a walkie-talkie, walked nonchalently up the road, past the hippo. The next thing we knew the man was running back towards the clearing, with the hippo chasing him. We were pretty nervous, and most of us jumped back in the vehicle, but I managed to get a series of photos with my Nikon D200 in high speed mode. A friend tried to get some video, but it ended up pretty blurred.

The hippo was moving quite quickly, but appeared to get bored and give up. The ranger was therefore OK, and didn't seem too shaken up by it.

A pretty good start to our safari! From about 2007 I thought people might be interested in the pictures, and licensed them to a few newspapers, and lodged them with some photo agencies, whilst retaining the copyright. They've since been seen very widely. Bill Day made a video explaining the dangers of hippos, which you can find on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLwVX7_sfXY