Two B.C. men who filmed a frightening encounter with a pair of angry, angry African hippos have sold their footage for use on U.S. television.
The video, which has been viewed about 220,000 times on YouTube, shows friends Evan Petkau and Luke Williams touring Lake Naivasha as a guide warns of the danger hippos pose.
"They are the biggest killers in Africa," he says. "It is said that hippos have killed more people in Africa than any other animal."
Their boat then approaches a pod of the bathing behemoths. At one point they come between calves and their mother, which dives underwater before aggressively charging the vessel.
Despite their size, hippos are surprisingly agile in water – and a second hippo manages to get within a few metres of the boat.
"It's kind of like Jurassic Park, where the T-Rex is chasing the car and it bites at the side mirror and it says ‘Objects are closer than they appear,'" Petkau said. "We thought that hippo was going to take us out."
Hippos can run between 30 and 50 kilometres per hour, and the two giving chase were running on the bottom of a shallow lake.
But the friends made it out alive, and recently sold the video to the National Geographic program "Caught in the Act." The footage is scheduled to air in the summer.
Williams and Petkau say they will return to Africa in the future to promote their ethical safari program – but won't forget the lesson they learned about respecting nature.
"It's a wake-up call," Petkau said. "You gotta watch out for those warning signs."
