This could be the best four minutes you’ll spend all day.
Kruger National Park in South Africa was recently home to one of the most outrageous wildlife videos you’ll ever see. Bob and Rosa Swart, two retired nature enthusiasts, happened in to be in the park and were in the right place at the right time to catch this wild scene on camera.
In the video, some cheetahs are seen in a dried out riverbed seemingly waiting for their dinner to arrive. Sure enough, a group of waterbucks came running though the area, which turned out to be not such a great deal for them and a wonderful surprise for the cheetahs.
The big cats are widely recognized as one of the fastest, if not the fastest, land animals on the planet. Their speed, eyesight, and quick-burst ability make them some of the deadliest hunters on the planet. Cheetahs can spot their prey from a long distance, then use their 75 mile-per-hour top speed to easily chase down their next meal.
These waterbucks probably wish they would have taken an alternate route when they rounded the corner and ran right into the hungry cheetahs. The group of three big cats manage to take one of them down, but that’s when things really get interesting.
Crocodiles start slowly walking right towards the downed buck protected by the cheetahs, and just like that, the battle is on.
The Swarts explain:
“All the commotion created a lot of interest, and the crocodiles that were basking in the sun on the edges of the remaining pools of water began approaching. The cheetahs tried to stand their ground and began hissing at the crocodiles.”
The cheetahs do their best to continually retreat and drag the body of the buck with them, but the crocodiles (like Michael Myers) just keep slow walking towards them.
Crocodiles generally hunt their own prey, so the video showing the crocs resorting to scavenging makes the encounter a little out of the norm. However, the large menacing reptiles tend to eat really anything they can get their hands on, so maybe the choices were lacking on this day in Kruger National Park.
The crocs eventually grab onto the deceased waterbuck and claim it as their own. Only one of the cheetahs is brave enough to counter attack after the two crocodiles moved in on their kill, and once the big cat sees other crocodiles following closely behind, it finally joins the other two cheetahs and runs away from the scene.
The Swarts added:
“The crocodiles eventually intimated the cheetahs, and they sprinted off away from their meal. A total of 12 crocodiles appeared and went for the waterbuck carcass. However, in the end, only the largest crocodile remained at the carcass, surrounded by vultures and other scavenging birds.”
I’m not sure how 12 crocodiles are going to share that one waterbuck, but I guess they’ll figure that out. The video only ever shows four of the crocodiles moving in on the scavenged kill, and I’m okay with that. Seeing 12 crocs might’ve been a little too much to comprehend.
Watch the incredible wildlife standoff below:
