If I was fortunate enough to be taking a trip to Africa, I would be extremely excited, but also a little apprehensive. There would be a number of animals inhabiting those parts that I would be very wary about getting close to. The Nile Crocodile, Elephants, and even those prowling lions and tigers. The animal that I should be the most worried about however, is the Hippopotamus. They have a reputation for killing more people than any other animal in Africa. I remember watching a lifestyle program on television not that long ago, where the presenter and his crew took off along a river in Africa with two tour guides in canoe like boats. Part way through the trip they came upon a Hippo grazing in the grass along side the river. Immediately the two guides stop paddling their oars in order not to scare the animal, and the presenter was told to speak in hushed tones so as not to provoke the seemingly docile animal. All seemed to be going well as the boats were just drifting past when for no real reason the animal lifted its head and started to charge towards the boats. I can tell you the look of terror on both the presenters face and the face of the tour guide was one of shear terror. After a few minutes of combat with the guides splashing their oars in the water in an effort to scare the animal away, it was all over. The Hippo stopped charging and relaxed back into chewing his grass. Maybe he decided that they weren't a threat after all. These people were extremely lucky. Once a Hippo begins to charge a person or even another animal, they vary rarely stop. In fact most people that are killed by Hippo's are taken whilst travelling on rivers, and the animals come up from beneath the boats, tip the people out and then kill them with their gigantic teeth. When you realise that a Hippopotamus can have canine teeth that grow up to 30 cm in length, it's not hard to see why there is not much chance of survival if a Hippo has hold of you. Stories abound, like the one of a Hippo in South Africa that broke into a hotels golf course. A security guard was monitoring the hippo's movements when it charged at him from roughly 45 metres away. The man was killed. Likewise in a Paris zoo, the Director was killed when a male Hippopotamus charged through an electric fence and ran after a new tractor, trampling the director of the zoo in the process. Other zoo workers tried to drive the hippo off the man with pitchforks, but with no success. This event involved an animal that zoo workers described as docile, and where publicity photos had been previously taken with a man placing his head between it's two enormous jaws.
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