One of the most amazing things I have seen in my life was this battle between two bull cape buffalo at the Ark. The stakes were the leadership of their herd of buffalo and neither male was at all interested in backing down. I do warn all viewers that there is violence throughout this but it was neither staged nor forced. Either animal could have ended the battle at any point if they were willing to back down, so I think it is spectacular and natural rather than being tragic or exploitive.
Those of you that recall my post on the structure of The Ark from last week will be able to see how Kathryn and I were able to position ourselves to get different angles and lots of coverage of this event. I switched between the bunker (in red) and the outdoor side deck (purple on the right) while Kathryn filmed the entire thing from the top outdoor deck (purple and higher). This resulted in us both having plenty of footage and coverage for each other when the animals were behind bush or too far for one of us to see.
The full battle itself was 15-20 minutes in length and totally draining just to watch. There were staff at The Ark who said they'd been there for years and never seen anything like it, so we were incredibly lucky to catch it in the 14 hours we were there. There was also divided consensus on which bull actually won the fight. Although the previously dominant male broke a horn and chased the other away, he then stayed away from the herd so there was varying opinion on who won. Several staff said the two had been looking at each other for awhile and that there could well be a follow up battle to decide a victor, but that didn't happen while we were there.
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