In June of 2009, I was visiting Pilansberg National Park
in the North West Province, South Africa. This park is a gem, surrounding an
ancient, ring-shaped volcanic complex and supporting a great diversity of
typical bushveld flora and fauna. I had been looking forward to the week-long trip,
certain that I would experience a magical time in the bush.
It seemed that this was not to be. I am used to bad
weather; it comes with the territory of camping in the bush. However, on this
occasion the weather triumphed – ceaseless, heavy rain for five days and nights
had reduced my campsite, my small tent and my vehicle into mud-baths. Worse
still for a photographer, the light was non-existent because of the persistent presence
of low stratus clouds. I was wet, cold and fed up and had decided to call it a
day. On my way from Bakgatla Camp to the main gate at Manyane, determined to
make it out of the park before nightfall and then on home to Johannesburg, I
passed Mankwe Dam. At the edge of the dam, amongst tall grasses, lay a hippo
carcass.
It was 16h30 in the afternoon, the sky was already dark grey
and it was still raining. I waited a while, more as a rest from the driving
than an expectation that something was going to happen. A male hippo in the
water about 30 meters away started to approach the bank slowly. Nothing
exciting. The male left the water and approached the carcass. This was a bit
better. What was to come blew me away.
For the next 7 minutes the bull hippopotamus walked up
to the carcass repeatedly, sniffing it, stepping away from the carcass, opening
his huge jaws, stepping back up to the carcass, sniffing again.
With greater confidence came nibbling, then chewing, and
finally licking of the carcass. The most fascinating characteristic of all this
behaviour was the complete absence of noise – at no stage did the male make any
sound. After an all too brief time (for me), the hippopotamus bull simply sauntered
to the water’s edge, entered the lake and left.
According to a field ranger that I managed to speak to, a
rival had killed the bull – apparently, the canines of the rival had punctured
his lungs during a territorial battle. When park staff discovered the carcass
floating in the water, they dragged it onto the shore.
What had I seen?
The two bulls in the images (one dead, the other alive) must
have known each other; Mankwe Dam is not exceptionally large. Also, and this is
clear from the images, the living bull was certainly curious about the carcass,
of that there is no doubt.
Can we say any more? With caution. A quite recent field
of study, comparative thanatology, aims to study dying and death in as wide an
assemblage of animal species as possible. Probably the most valid conclusion
(and the only one I would venture based on these images), is that one bull hippopotamus
was attracted to and became curious about another bull hippopotamus, albeit a
dead one. The hippopotamus corpse at the same time would have seemed familiar (hippo
shape, hippo size, etc.) and very different (no movement, different smell, an
absence of behaviour) to the approaching bull. This confusion of the senses
would have been enough to provoke the behaviour that I was lucky enough to
witness. No more, no less.
I stayed for another three days and nights – yep in
pouring rain – enjoying bad weather photography!
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