Something Felt Off
Sharon Klopper, Michelle Vagionakis, and their friend Jennie had actually visited Ruighoek Dam the day before the attack. Even then, something caught their attention.
A mother hippo was keeping a very young calf within the main pod, which struck the group as unusual. Mother hippos typically keep newborns at a safe distance from the group, especially when calves are that small and vulnerable.
Intrigued by the behaviour, the three decided to return to the hide the following morning. When they arrived, other visitors were already there, visibly unsettled.
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Nobody could say exactly what was happening, but something was clearly very wrong with the little hippo in the water.
An Unthinkable Attack
The situation escalated without warning. A large male hippo seized the calf in his jaws, forcing it underwater, thrashing it violently, and at one point launching it onto the back of another hippo entirely. It was brutal and relentless.
What made it even harder to watch was the baby’s response. Despite the repeated attacks, it kept making its way back to its mother.
Sharon described it simply: “It was like it knew where it belonged.”
The mother fought desperately to intervene, but the male was simply too powerful. As other hippos gathered around the commotion, forming a half-moon shape around the unfolding chaos, the mother grew increasingly panicked, lashing out at any hippo that came near her in a state of confusion and desperation.
The Aftermath
Eventually, the water stilled. The baby managed to drag itself out, but the injuries it had sustained were severe.
Its abdomen was open, wounds covered its body, and walking was clearly agonising, likely due to damage to its hind legs. The mother and another female followed closely, lowering their heads to smell and inspect the wounds.
The baby found a bush and collapsed beside it. The second female eventually moved off, leaving mother and calf alone.
What Sharon witnessed next has stayed with her. The mother stood over her baby and appeared to let her saliva fall onto its wounds, almost instinctively.
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Then came what Sharon described as a silent scream, a raw, wordless expression of grief, before the mother gently nudged the calf out of sight and walked away.
“We don’t know what happened to the baby after that,” Sharon shared. “We assume the mother knew it was time to say goodbye, as her little one was definitely not going to survive much longer.”
Why These Attacks Happen
As difficult as it is to witness, infanticide does occur among hippos. Males will sometimes attack calves that are not their own, particularly in pods where tensions around dominance and mating rights run high.
It is a harsh but documented reality of hippo social dynamics, where sheer size and aggression can override even the most fierce maternal protection. For rangers, researchers, and wildlife enthusiasts, moments like this are a sobering reminder that nature operates without sentiment, even when the animals themselves seem to express something that looks unmistakably like it.
A Moment That Stays With You
Sharon, Michelle, and Jennie set out that morning simply hoping to observe wildlife from a quiet hide. What they witnessed instead was one of the most emotionally charged scenes Pilanesberg has ever offered up to a visitor.
It was nature at its most raw: a mother’s love, an infant’s will to survive, and the unrelenting force of the wild playing out in real time. For those three women, it is a story they will carry with them long after the images fade.