Water Buffalo - Literally

Photo courtesy of Stacey Farrell

On Wednesday evening, 1 February, the Advantage Estuary boat spotted a buffalo swimming in St Lucia estuary.  Their initial thought was that it was trying to get to the other side; normal for a buffalo.  It was getting dark and as no boats are allowed on the water after dark, no further investigations could be carried out until Thursday.

As far as we know, there weren't any sightings of the buffalo until late Thursday afternoon, at approximately 16h30, when Stacey Farrell of Heritage Tours and her guests spotted it during their late afternoon cruise.
  There had been a few boats surrounding the buffalo but all had left by the time Stacey's boat arrived on the scene. 

“The buffalo was under a lot of stress swimming in circles. But this I think was caused by all the boats. Eventually the buffalo seemed to settle and I decided to leave him, didn't want him under more stress.”  remarked Stacey.  “As we started moving away the hippos started moving towards him. First it was two curious youngsters but then the whole pod of hippos arrived. They seemed to 'half moon' the buffalo as if to protect him. I personally think they were protecting him from the boats”. 

Photo courtesy of Stacey Farrell

Whilst this theory could be 'tossed aside' by many, there have been previous stories of assumed unlikely hippo conduct, such as the time, as reported on 50/50 some years back, a pod of hippo drove a crocodile off an impala it was trying to kill, thus allowing the impala a safe release from the water.

Unfortunately, however, the buffalo was found dead on Friday; a unique, albeit tragic, story.

As with all uncommon occurrences, there is a lot of speculation and numerous assumptions surrounding this case.  Some think the buffalo could have been stuck in the mud and therefore unable to get out of the water.  Stacey does not believe this to be the case, however, as she witnessed the buffalo swimming some 20 metres at a time before resting.  “It's as if he wanted to cross but something was stopping him. He would swim towards the middle then turn back to the shallows.” 

Another strange element is the fact that, to our knowledge, the buffalo was spotted only late on Wednesday and Thursday, not during the day on Thursday.  Perhaps it got out of the water and returned, or perhaps it was too well hidden amongst the hippos or reeds to be seen.

I will investigate further and attempt to uncover more facts on this case and will post my findings accordingly.