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Gamekeeper in Uganda becomes target of angry Hippo

Last year when I was in Uganda, a man told me a story about a gamekeeper who outran a hippopotamus. I didn’t believe the story at first but then I looked it up and it turned out to be true

Turns out the guy was a gamekeeper at Murchison Falls National Park. He got a little too close to one of the park hippos. The hippo charged him and the guy had to run for it.

Hippo can run up to 24 MPG

Luckily the gamekeeper was a very good runner and out ran the hippo.  Most people wouldn’t be able to do that. Hippos have been clocked at speeds up to 24 miles per hour.

Gamekeeper outruns Hippo

To get an idea of how lucky this gamekeeper was to escape, take a few minutes to read about how dangerous these beasts are.

HIPPO KILL MORE HUMANS THAN ANY OTHER ANIMAL IN AFRICA

Hippos may look like over sized harmless cows to some people, but truth be told they are one of the most dangerous beasts in Africa and kill more humans that any other animal there. More than four hundred people in Africa have been killed by rampaging hippos. This figure far exceeds the death toll from lions, tigers or any other wild animals.

Hippos  can weigh up to 9000 pounds and and have teeth that are as sharp as razor blades. These beasts are vegetarians and don’t eat people. But they will crush you between their giant jaws if angered. This is what happened to Spencer Tyron, a African hunter who was attacked by a bull hippo. The animal’s crushing bite was so powerful it sliced off Tyron’s head as well as his shoulders.

Hippo have the ability to cut a crocodile in half with a single bite

Hippos are known to attack on land, but most attacks from Hippos come in the water when people in boats get too close to them. There are dozens of videos on Youtube showing this. In one, it shows a hippo actually attacking the outboard motors on the vessel.

Watch a hippo rip the cowling off an outboard motor at 01:15 in the video below

In most cases, the driver is able to get away quickly enough, but sometimes the hippo gets the upper hand and tragedy quickly ensues. This is what happened to a young honeymoon couple from South Africa.

HONEYMOON TRAGEDY – MAN’S NEW WIFE KILLED BY HIPPO

Bruce Simpson and his wife Janice were on safari in Botswana’s Okavango Delta. They were traveling in  a canoe with a guide. The canoe came too close to a hippo and was attacked. The hippo tipped the canoe over. It then crushed young Janice between it’s jaws and bit through her heart and lung. She died instantly.

HIPPO VETERINARIAN ATTACK

Even professionals find it difficult to work with Hippo. In 2010 a group of veterinarians were testing a new sedative on a Hippo in South Africa. The sedative turned out to be too weak. The animal woke up and attacked one of the doctors. He would have been killed if it had not been for an armed game warden who shot and killed the animal.

A veterinarian who was experimenting with sedatives for Hippos is attacked

SOUTH AFRICAN FARMER KILLED BY HIS PET HIPPO

Marius Els 41, had raised a hippo he called Humphrey from the age of five months, and  once described the hippo as being ‘like a son’ to him. But Marius misunderstood the danger of trying to befriend unpredictable hippos.  One night in 2011, Humphrey turned on his owner. It gouged Marius to death  by repeatedly biting him in a vicious attack.

The farmer’s mutilated body was discovered submerged in a river running through his 400-acre farm in rural South Africa. He was married with 2 children at the time of his death.

Farmer Marius Els and his pet Hippo, Humphrey

LOCAL VILLAGER KILLED BY HIPPO

In South Africa, a local villager named Alfred Dube was found trampled and lifeless in a thicket near a river he had been trying to cross with two friends.

“The men knew the river was home to crocodiles and hippo, but claim they had no other way of crossing. Dube was the second to swim across, and appears to have been seized almost exactly in the middle of the river,” said regional police spokesperson Captain Benjamin Bhembe.

“He screamed and struggled, but was apparently unable to free himself from the large animal’s jaws. When he was dragged underwater, his horrified friends ran for help in opposite directions.”

The local police station almost immediately dispatched a rescue team, but was unable to trace the missing man. “All we found were some very large blood stains on the river bank near the scene,” said Captain Bhembe.

“We’re still uncertain whether Dube was dragged into the dense thicket and then trampled, or whether he was trying to escape. The most significant injuries were two deep bite wounds in the back, said Captain Bhembe.

Despite warnings, some people continue to think Hippos can be tamed

ISRAELI TOURIST KILLED AS HORRIFIED CHILDREN WATCH

In another case not long ago,  Aviyam Yariv, a 39-year-old criminal attorney and son of literary editor and translator Hilit Yeshurun, took his two children out for a boat ride along the Zambezi river in Africa, when suddenly a hippo turned their boat over causing the three to fall into the water.

According to Yedioth Ahronoth, both children, who were wearing life vests, were able to stay afloat and made it out alive. However, Yariv, who was not wearing a life vest, was not as lucky. He was most likely attacked by hippos and alligators dwelling in the tumultuous river. He was never found.

FORMER SOUTH AFRICAN BEAUTY QUEEN ATTACKED BY HIPPO

In yet another case, Former Miss South Africa (1991), Diana Tilden-Davis, was bitten on the leg by a hippo while canoeing in the Okavango Swamps in Botswana. Lucky she survived.

Her husband Chris Kruger told the SAPA news agency: “The Hippo must have been very stressed because he attacked Di just above the ankle with his razor-sharp teeth going through her bone and skin.”

Lunch!

HOW TO AVOID A HIPPO ATTACK

If by chance you find yourself confronted with a Hippo, here are a few tips that might come in handy.

• If you’re in a canoe, allow hippos plenty of space. Avoid rivers where numbers are concentrated.
 

• Tap the side of the boat to signal your position so hippos do not come up beneath you.


• Keep your distance when on foot. Avoid thickets where hippos may be skulking.


• Listen out for oxpecker calls – a warning sign that there may be a hippo around.


• Clapping your hands, waving your arms or shouting is likely to have no effect on a charging hippo. Your only hope is to seek immediate refuge behind or up a tree or behind a termite mound.

On a lighter note, here are some interesting facts about hippos:

Hippopotamus’s closest living relatives are whales and porpoises from which they diverged about 55 million years ago.Their skin secrete a natural sunscreen substance that is red-colored. The secretion is sometimes referred to as ‘bloodsweat’ but is neither blood nor sweat.  This secretion is initially colorless and turns red-orange within minutes, eventually becoming brown.

Dolphins were given party drugs at Rave

A CONTROVERSIAL rave held at a Swiss zoo went horribly wrong when party-goers fed dolphins a heroin-like substance.

Toxicology results have confirmed suspicions the dolphins, named Shadow and Chelmers, were given the drug Buprenorphine, which drowned them by suppressing their natural instinct to surface for air, the UK’s Sun reported.

The rave was held at the Connyland marine park in Lipperswil, Switzerland, last November. At first it was thought that the blaring techno music had caused their deaths.

Dutch marine biologist and dolphin expert Cornelis van Elk said opiates were extremely dangerous for underwater mammals.

“The reason is that dolphins are conscious breathers, which means they actively decide when to come to the surface to breathe,” he said.
“Drugging them with opiates causes this part of the brain to switch off, with fatal consequences.”

Connyland zookeeper Nadja Gasser said the dolphins suffered a horrific and slow death.

“He was drifting under the water and was clearly in trouble and so we jumped into the water. We tried to hold him. He was shaking all over and was foaming at the mouth,” Gasser said.

“The death went on for over an hour. It was horrendous. I have not been able to sleep since.”

Animal rights activist said they had warned the zoo about the dangers of the event.

Connyland has denied any wrongdoing.

ARE YOU SENSITIVE TO ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDS FROM CELL PHONES?

According to an article written by Christopher Ketcham in the Earth Island Journal, there seems to be a growing consensus that there are a class of humans who are hypersensitive to Electromagnetic Fields – the signals that come off cell phone towers and various other forms of wireless communications.

For evidence, Ketcham points to a number of people, including Alison Rall.  In January 1990, a cell tower goes up 800 feet from Alison Rall’s dairy farm in Mansfield, Ohio. By fall, the cattle herd that pastures near the tower is sick, and Rall’s three young children begin suffering bizarre skin rashes, raised red “hot spots.” The kids are hit with waves of hyperactivity. The girls lose hair. Rall, when she becomes pregnant with a fourth child, can’t gain weight.

Desperate to understand what is happening to her family and her farm, she contacts an Environmental Protection Agency scientist named Carl Blackman. He’s an expert on the biological effects of radiation from electromagnetic fields (EMFs)—the kind of radiofrequency EMFs (RF-EMFs) by which all wireless technology operates, including not just cell towers and cell phones but also wi-fi hubs and wi-fi-capable computers, “smart” utility meters, and even cordless home phones. “With my government cap on, I’m supposed to tell you you’re perfectly safe,” Blackman tells her. “With my civilian cap on, I have to tell you to consider leaving.”

In another case, there is a woman who gets sick after the electric company places a wireless electrical meter in her house. In Santa Fe , New Mexico there is a woman who has taken to wearing aluminum foil to kill wireless signals. Then there is the former world record marathoner who moved to house ringed by mountains to protect herself from cell frequencies.

The government of Sweden reports that the disorder known as electromagnetic hypersensitivity, or EHS, afflicts an estimated 3 percent of the population. Even the former prime minister of Norway, Gro Harlem Brundtland, has acknowledged that she suffers “strong discomfort” when she is exposed to cell phones.

TO FIND OUT IF YOU HAVE SYMPTOMS OF CELL PHONE HYPERSENSITIVITY MORE VISIT http://www.emfsensitivity.com/

TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE VISIT http://www.utne.com/environment/rf-emfs-zm0z12mjzros.aspx

According to an article printed in  the Stanford University’s School of Earth Sciences magazine, the sexual liaisons between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens thousands of years ago left us humans with a stronger immune system.  “This is really the first evidence that there was something functional that was contributed from this admixture that was useful for modern humans,” says Laurent Abi-Rached, a research associate in Parham’s lab and first author on the report in Science. Specifically, the Neanderthal DNA fortifies a class of immune genes called human leukocyte antigens (HLA), which play a vital role in protecting people against viruses and infections.

A mix of immune genes is so essential to our species’ survival, explains the Article, “that people are attracted to the scents of prospective sexual partners with disparate HLA types.” This might explain why Neanderthals and Homo sapiens hooked up in the first place. So the next time you find yourself attracted to some beast of a person, don’t be shy. Go for the immune boosting rewards!

Millions of people smoke in China, including children

Not long ago, civil servants in China’s Gongan county were ordered to smoke cigarettes. Not just one or two. A target of 230,000 cigarettes was set for all those on local government payroll to smoke in a year. If this target is not reached, they face a fine.

You may wonder if this is China’s newest plan to tackle its overpopulation problem by getting lots of people to die from lung cancer. But it was all a plan to boost tax revenues. And given that taxes make up around 40% of the price of a packet of cigarettes, you can see what a lucrative little earner it would have been.

Fortunately, the order was revoked after an uproar, as news of it spread around China and the world. So Gongan’s officials can breathe easier.

Well, maybe a little easier, anyway – 56% of adult males in China smoke regularly, and the nation’s 350 million addicts puff their way through 2 trillion cigarettes each year.

                          MYSTERY OF THE MISSING PARK RANGER

Saving the environment has become a cause celeb over the last couple of decades.  From protecting rain forests to guarding oceans and animals,  there are legions of people trying to make a difference. Seeing these people doing all these good things for nature makes me grateful they are there, but what about nature itself? How does nature feel about these heroic people and their dedication? Is nature grateful for all this? Can nature appreciate a helping hand and offer some thanks in return?

I never thought about this question until a recent trip to southern Borneo. I was heading up the Sekonyer River not far from a town called Kumai to see some semi-wild Orangutans that live in the swamp forests of a national park known as Tanjung Puting. It is the largest protected forest in southern Borneo.

“We just lost a ‘Ranger’ in this area,” my guide Manny told me as he pointed at a small dock on the edge of the forest. Manny wasn’t much older than 20 and had a look of sincerity on his face. He had been guiding tourists through this area of Borneo for only a few years.

“What do you mean,” I asked innocently.  It was hard to fathom anything going seriously wrong from where I sat – eating banana fritters on top of a brightly colored tourist boat named after a famous Orangutan.

“He just disappeared,” Manny told me. “About a month ago from the ranger station at Pesalat.”

The missing ranger, I quickly learned was a 27 year old named Digman from a nearby village. He was the new recruit to a 50 member team of eco-rangers who are assigned with protecting the flora and fauna of the Park. These rangers occupy a number of stations scattered throughout the park for a month at a time. Sometimes they are alone and sometimes they have 1 or 2 other rangers with them. They officially work for a re-forestry program called “One Man One Tree” that is run by the Indonesian Government. But they are also there to protect just about everything  from ravages of illegal loggers, poachers, and colonists.

A typical idealistic young "Park Ranger" in Borneo

Digman always wanted to work in this area. Ever since he was a young man, he had a yearning to protect the environment. He grew up during a period of massive deforestation throughout the 90′s, and did everything he could to find a career protecting the environment from further decline. When he got a job as an ranger in the park, he was thrilled. He happily packed the few belongings he could take, and dedicated himself to his training. He then proceeded to his first post at Pesalat for a month’s stay.

Two weeks after Digman took up his guard duties at Pesalat,  another ranger, Ledan, stopped to check up on Digman. But Digman was gone.  Ledan looked around and found a local villager who said the new ranger gave up the lonely job and went home. But Ledan didn’t believe it.  Digman’s wallet with money and all his clothes were still there.  Ledan sent out the word that something was wrong.

The tale reminded me of the stereotypical stories you hear coming from the rain forest. When an ecological do-gooder gets between illegal loggers and their timber, or poachers and their prey,  the do-gooder is the one who usually ends hurt or even killed. But that didn’t seem to be the case here. As my guide Manny explained, all the illegal loggers and poachers had been removed from the national park and given other lands to exploit so there was no real conflict there.

“So then what do you think happened to this Digam ranger?” I asked.

“There are lots of things that could have happened to him, ” Manny said.

Manny told me the local villagers had a few theories about what happened to Digman. Most thought Digman had been eaten by a crocodile.  The area is teaming with them and every so often, the crocs are able to get their teeth into a human. Manny told me that a few years before my arrival, a British tourist who was on a boat just like mine got a little carried away and went swimming. Despite warnings from the boat’s captain to stay out of the water, this crazy tourist just couldn’t hold back his inner Steve Irwin and eventually got eaten by a crocodile.

Borneo Crocodiles are a constant threat to humans in the swamp forests of Tanjung Puting

According to Manny, the police came out to investigate the death of the tourist. They wanted to find the body and then kill the croc before it struck again. But before they could accomplish their task, one of the policeman was killed by a croc and the investigation was abandoned.

“Wow,”I said in amazement. ” I feel bad for the people who were killed, but it blows my mind to think of the crocs winning over the police. ”

Manny nodded his head and told me that the police no longer came out to look for missing people. “If you want them to come out, you have to pay them,” he said.

“You mean the police didn’t come out to look for Digman?”

“No, just the other rangers and Digman’s family,” Manny confessed.

“And they didn’t find anything. No croc, no remains?”

“Not really. There was a moment when they thought Digman might have been eaten by a Python but that didn’t pan out.”

“Are you talking about a snake?”

“Yes, Borneo has some of the largest Python’s in the world. Not long after Digman went missing, someone captured an 18 meter python with human remains inside of it.”

I was incredulous. “18 meters… Are you telling me they caught a Python snake that was almost 50 feet long?”

Manny's picture of a Dead python hanging over a crane arm

Manny knew it was hard to believe so he pulled out his mobile phone and scanned through some pictures. He stopped on one showing a huge python draped over a crane arm. The crane arm was fully extended and the snake dwarfed it. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

“They caught it using a chicken on a rope. But once they killed it and opened it up, they discovered it was a security guard from a local palm oil plantation who also went missing.”

I was barely over the terrible thought of being devoured by a 50 ft Python when Manny went on to mention other things that might have happened to Digman.  “There are also leopards in the area who are known to attack humans,” he said. “Only a few months ago,  a ranger was attacked by a leopard. Luckily, he survived. But it is also to easy to get killed that way.”

Clouded Leopard of Borneo is known to attack humans

Our conversation eventually went on to Orangutans since it was the purpose of our trip.  But the thought of poor Digman and his certain demise at the hands of hungry animals stuck with me all day. It seemed so odd that a young man so filled with a passion to help protect nature would be treated so poorly by it. If only the animals knew that he was there for their benefit, perhaps they would have chosen to thank him instead of devouring him. How ungrateful I thought. Nature is so lacking in empathy, conscience or morals. It seems to only know one thing – eat or be eaten. I guess that is something to remember if you ever decide to join the cause to protect nature in the wild. Don’t do it if your desire is to be appreciated for your behavior more than your flesh.

A tourist boat on the River

To find out more about boat tours in Tanjung Puting, visit this tripadvisor page

If you spent 27 hours and lots of money getting to Paradise, you expect some serious paradise, right? Not in Jimbaran Bay or Kuta Beach on the Island of Bali, Indonesia when I was there. The water and beaches were filled with more trash than I have ever seen on a beach. Indonesia’s Culture and Tourism Minister Jero Wacik has blamed the terrible condition of many of Bali’s famed beaches, including Kuta, on the wind. The second-term minister, who has in the past faced criticism from the tourism industry about his ineffectiveness, said strong winds blew the garbage, dirt and other detritus onto the beach from the ocean.

Jero, himself from Bali, also defended the resort island against a scathing article in Time magazine, which was titled “Holidays in Hell: Bali’s Ongoing Woes.” In the article, writer Andrew Marshall didn’t hold back.”Rivers swell and flush their trash and frothing human waste into the sea off Kuta Beach, the island’s most famous tourist attraction, where bacteria bloom and the water turns muddy with dead plankton.”

He said skin infections caused by spending just 30 minutes in the ocean was just one of Bali’s problems: “water shortages, rolling blackouts, uncollected trash, overflowing sewage-treatment plants and traffic so bad that parts of the island resemble Indonesia’s gridlocked capital Jakarta.

Who owns the water?

A canoeist is headed to court for defying a “No Trespassing” sign on a creek in New York’s Adirondack State Park that passes through private property. Matthew Sturdevant writes in Canoe & Kayak magazine about the principled stand taken by paddler Phil Brown, whose case “is one of many potentially precedent-setting lawsuits and legislative battles pitting the rights of landowners against those of paddlers.”

It’s not just these narrow interest groups that have a stake in the matter, though: Such cases are important to anyone who values public access to public resources.

Read more: http://www.utne.com/Wild-Green/This-Water-Is-My-Water-Canoeist-Fights-for-Rights.aspx#ixzz1S08C7WZe