Battle at Kruger

Battle at Kruger is an amateur wildlife video that depicts an unfolding confrontation between a herd of Cape Buffalo, a small pride of lions, and one or two crocodiles. The video was shot in September 2004 at a watering hole in Kruger National Park, South Africa, during a Safari guided by Frank Watts, it was filmed by videographer David Budzinski and photographer Jason Schlosberg.

After being posted on YouTube in 2007, Battle at Kruger became a viral video sensation and was widely praised for its dramatic depiction of wildlife on the African savannah. It became one of YouTube's most popular videos, with more than 38 million views and 41 thousand comments as of November 2008^[update], and won the Best Eyewitness Video in the 2nd Annual YouTube Video Awards. The video was also the subject of an article in the 25 June 2007 issue of Time magazine, and was featured in the first episode of ABC News' i-Caught, which aired on 7 August 2007. A National Geographic documentary on the video debuted on the National Geographic Channel on 11 May 2008.

Expert commentary

Two veterinarians and animal behaviorists interviewed by Time assert that the behavior exhibited by the buffalo is not unusual. Dr. Sue McDonnell of the University of Pennsylvania (School of Veterinary Medicine) said of the video:

"The larger herd is broken down into smaller harems, with a dominant male and several females and their babies. If a youngster is threatened, both the harem males and bachelor males—which usually fight with one another—will get together to try to rescue it."

It is, however, rare for such events to be captured on film even by professional wildlife photographers. Indeed Dereck Joubert, a photographer and writer for National Geographic said of the video:

"There is no doubt at all that the tourist who shot that scene [...] was unbelievably lucky. I mean, we would've considered ourselves lucky to have had that whole scene happen in front of us.