People often say a mother will do anything to protect her children even if it puts her in danger. In this case, a mature hippopotamus was thrown several feet into the air while defending herself from a hostile elephant bull, giving her baby time to flee for safety. Amazingly, she managed to escape the ᴀᴛᴛᴀᴄᴋ with little more than a minor cut on her body and a ᴅᴀᴍᴀɢᴇd ego.

Wildlife photographer Rian Van Schalkwyk, 40, shot the picture at the Erindi Private Game Reserve in Windhoek, Nᴀᴍɪʙɪᴀ. He said that he felt so fortunate to have witnessed that. He had spent a lot of time in the bush and that was the most incredible sᴄᴇɴᴇ he had ever seen.

Van Schalkwyk was spending a long weekend at the reserve with his wife Bonnie and a large group of family members.  After lunch when everyone else had come back to their rooms for sleep, the magnificent sᴄᴇɴᴇ took place. Van Schalkwyk said that he was taking pictures of the hippos in the water when the staff arrived and threw some ɢʀᴀss out for hippos because they have nothing else to eat because of the prolonged drought. Almost immediately, twenty hippos emerged from the water and began to graze.

In a hurry, a giant elephant bull came from the brush and started charging toward the meadow. The elephant was originally happy to graze beside the hippos, but when they started to get ᴄʟᴏsᴇr, it became agitated and began to flap its ears angrily. The elephant decided to take immediate action when the mother hippo veered just slightly too ᴄʟᴏsᴇ.

The hippo was dwarfed by the male elephant, the elephant was able to easily flip her with his trunk despite the fact that adult female hippos may weigh upwards of 1.5 tonnes. She fell to the ground on her back and spun around to face the water. The elephant simply stood there and shook his head thereafter.

The hippo turned back toward the lake. The mother stayed in the water for around five minutes before eventually emerging as the calf went off in the direction of the other hippos. The mother and calf were soon reunited, but instead of showing herd members compassion, they began acting aggressively toward the mother, forcing her to retreat with her calf and stand away from the others.

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