Buffalo temperament?

ChooChoo404

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In the context of Mr. Watkins’ death, some have stated, others implied, that game ranch/preserve as in fenced-in buff are more aggressive.

What are the facts?

Who can give us chapter and verse on why game ranch buff may be (are they?) nastier than free range?
 
I don't know if you will get an objective answer, no matter which side. An outfitter would have to admit that he breeds buffalo and keeps them behind fences, ready for hunting, and a client would have to admit that his buffalo hunt took place behind fences. Sensitive discussion topics on both side.
 
Free lancer PH, with experience may provide an honest answer to this question.
 
Maybe, but whether they will respond in an open Forum is not so certain. I would not comment on this topic if I were a PH, free lance or not. Would not want to spoil the business.

Anyone with a little knowledge of cattle breeding or wild animals hold behind fences, knows that such animals can often be much more aggressive than in the wild. Not only cattle bulls but also deers have killed people under such circumstances, which rarely occurs in the wild.
 
I was in SA in April/May. Hunted Cape Buffalo. Two good bulls came into a waterhole. I shot the lead Buffalo. He disappeared into the long grass. My PH had a bad feeling. Thought he heard it fall but no death bellow or any other indication of death. We cautiously went in after him 10-20 minutes after the shots. We slowed our pace after going in 100 feet as it was THICK. Suddenly, the long grass swirled 50 feet in front of us. Out came ANOTHER Cape Buffalo, my original buffalo's Askari, head down, front legs churning dirt in a concentrated charge straight for us! I threw up the Blazer 470 NE and pulled BOTH triggers simultaneously! 1000 grains of solids at point blank range. I stopped him a measured 2 1/2 meters away! He flipped over on his back at the roar of the double. Spine shot just behind the head. I walked over behind him as he bellowed in rage. A coup de gras ended his anger at the killing of his best friend. His best friend, my INTENDED Cape Buffalo, lying dead 40 feet behind us!
 
In the context of Mr. Watkins’ death, some have stated, others implied, that game ranch/preserve as in fenced-in buff are more aggressive.

What are the facts?

Who can give us chapter and verse on why game ranch buff may be (are they?) nastier than free range?
he just got unlucky. maybe a mistake, got too confident and over looked detail's he wasent supposed to, he was tracking the buff that killed him. am sure he had done this countless time's.
 
which rarely occurs in the wild.
If you get into a wild area, where a buffalo had bad experiences with hunters or poachers, being shot at, wounded, or having a festering wound on a leg, from a poacher's wire snare, I am pretty certain he will be more aggressive than normal.
 
We hunt dangerous game BECAUSE they are dangerous! We should know there is always the chance Murphy wins. Dangerous game are an adrenaline sport, not a bucket list item. If we go doing what makes us feel most alive...so be it. There are far worse deaths than these of the fortunate.
 
I have never hunted ranch buffalo. The closest I’ve come is Klaserie, and it would be hard to describe that as fenced. However I have been on RSA ranches that held buffalo. I have hunted free range buffalo in Botswana, Zambia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South Africa.

My data set is so small it is difficult to draw any meaningful conclusions. I will say that the fenced buffalo seemed very ‘switched on’ and less likely to head to the next time zone when they winded us. I have often wondered if taking their main defence away, putting miles and miles between themselves and a perceived threat, might cause them to be more aggressive. As large as these ranches seem to us, they are not large when compared to the territory a herd of free range buffalo will cover when pressured by man or lion.
 
I don't know either, I also only hunted buffalo on open areas. I just suspect that fenced-in buffalo are more aggressive when I compare with what sometimes happens with cattle in our fields or game in a small fenced reserve.
 
Hope people can chime in. I know CBL lions are more aggressive and people say that is because they are not afraid of humans. Could it be the same with the buffalo? Just a thought. I'm certainly no expert on this subject.

Only encounter with buffalo was when I was taking a rest with my PH and cameraman in SA. We stand up and suddenly there are, iirc, 4 male buffalo at approximately 15 meters from us. I'm the only one with a gun. A 30-06 so way undergunned. We had a small standoff, some snoring but then they bolted away.

PH said afterwards, still to this day not knowing if he joked or not, that if they took one step closer he had snatched my rifle. Think he was serious.
 
Most game ranches in South Africa (where ethical hunting is practiced) are large enough so that most of the game contained within never actually gets to see the ranch fences within their lifetime. That said, all animals behave relatively more dangerously in comparatively more confined spaces. It’s the first rule we forest rangers were taught when we began our course of “Principles Of Forestry” in the University Of Peshawar in 1967.

If they know the boundaries/limits of just how far they can go in order to escape their tormentors, they become more aggressive when they are getting closer to the ranch fences. We see it with hippopotamus all the time, when we stand between them and the safety of their water bodies. We see it with leopard hunted over hounds. When pushed long enough and eventually made to think that it simply can’t escape, nine times out of ten… the leopard WILL charge. Cape buffalo are far more intelligent & capable of tactical planning than what initially meets the eye. I faced two unwounded South African Cape buffalo charges in the Limpono Province. It’s no coincidence that on both occasions, the charges occurred relatively near the ranch boundaries.

The Marquis De Monestrol authored an excellent book called “La Faune Et
La Flore Indochinoises” which talks about how Gaur behave far more aggressively when they think that escape is not so easy anymore.

On the subject of captive bred lion, the notion that they can be more aggressive than wild lion is not 100% accurate. Since I’ve actually been fortunate enough to hunt multiple wild lions as well as a captive bred lion, I will shed some insight upon this matter. Wild lions employ ambush tactics in order to get at their prey. When sensing hunters approaching them, an unwounded wild lion will (eight times out of ten) attempt to get away. Because they have learnt to perceive human beings as dangerous. A captive bred lion (upon being released into the hunting area) will show a predisposition towards forcefully chasing his/her prey and then killing it. It takes roughly 15 months in order for it to learn proper ambush tactics in the wild. When approached by human beings, nine times out of ten… it charges and attempts a frontal attack. Because it has not learnt that man can be dangerous and can stop the attack (i.e shoot it) when seeing it approaching from the front.

P.S: When Asher recently lost his life during the tragic hunting incident, he was attacked by the Cape buffalo not far from the ranch boundary. I have good reason to believe that the Cape buffalo in question, was well aware of where the ranch boundary was before it decided to attack.
 
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I don’t think there will be a clear answer. A Buffalo that’s lost its fear of humans is a dangerous buffalo whether in wild or fenced. My most nerve racking buffalo hunt has been In Maasailand. The bull was downwind of us and could care less multiple times at under 20 yards. They frequently come in contact with the massai and attack them. Every buffalo I’ve ever seen in Zimbabwe ran the second the wind shifted, but I could easily see the situation where an old dugga boy living in villages to escape lions could quickly become dangerous. However, I think small fenced farms in South Africa become something different. PHs, landowners, etc can become too familiar with them as a version of livestock. Many were introduced, many bulls will be chipped, many will have received supplemental feed and not view the vehicle as danger and sometimes chase it. I think the potential to be exposed to a buffalo that has lost its fear of man is significantly higher in South Africa than elsewhere, particularly on the lowest cost hunts on small areas. However, to be clear, I absolutely would not put an CVS concessions in this category. Every buffalo hunt has the potential to be dangerous with the wrong bull.
 
I’m no expert with only one DG wilderness hunt in Mozambique almost 30 years ago and a much more recent hunt for buffalo in Limpopo last year. Perhaps the 10,000 acre fenced property I hunted last year was unlike some others, being adjacent to the Greater Kruger Area with the Klaserie River flowing through it with lions, leopard, hyena and wild dogs venturing onto the fenced concession. In fact, if a buffalo were wounded and not recovered immediately, there would be nothing left of it between the hyenas and lions, it would be devoured overnight.

For the most part, the approximate 150 herd of buffalo (scattered in various groups) were pretty “switched” on, used to being hunted and primed for flight when encountering hunters, except a few bulls in thick cover. While tracking a small group of buffalo in thick brush, one bull almost seemed reluctant to run off, turning back as if he where protecting the rear and my PH stating this was a cheeky bull with an attitude, one he felt could even charge unprovoked. He was still 1-2 years away from being shootable per my PH and taking a photo of him 35 yards away probably wasn't the smartest thing I could do. (See attached photo)

On our Moz hunt, if the buffalo detected humans, they were gone, no hanging around.

IMG_2168.jpeg
 
Most game ranches in South Africa (where ethical hunting is practiced) are large enough so that most of the game contained within never actually gets to see the ranch fences within their lifetime. That said, all animals behave relatively more dangerously in comparatively more confined spaces. It’s the first rule we forest rangers were taught when we began our course of “Principles Of Forestry” in the University Of Peshawar in 1967.

If they know the boundaries/limits of just how far they can go in order to escape their tormentors, they become more aggressive when they are getting closer to the ranch fences. We see it with hippopotamus all the time, when we stand between them and the safety of their water bodies. We see it with leopard hunted over hounds. When pushed long enough and eventually made to think that it simply can’t escape, nine times out of ten… the leopard WILL charge. Cape buffalo are far more intelligent & capable of tactical planning than what initially meets the eye. I faced two unwounded South African Cape buffalo charges in the Limpono Province. It’s no coincidence that on both occasions, the charges occurred relatively near the ranch boundaries.

The Marquis De Monestrol authored an excellent book called “La Faune Et
La Flore Indochinoises” which talks about how Gaur behave far more aggressively when they think that escape is not so easy anymore.

On the subject of captive bred lion, the notion that they can be more aggressive than wild lion is not 100% accurate. Since I’ve actually been fortunate enough to hunt multiple wild lions as well as a captive bred lion, I will shed some insight upon this matter. Wild lions employ ambush tactics in order to get at their prey. When sensing hunters approaching them, an unwounded wild lion will (eight times out of ten) attempt to get away. Because they have learnt to perceive human beings as dangerous. A captive bred lion (upon being released into the hunting area) will show a predisposition towards forcefully chasing his/her prey and then killing it. It takes roughly 15 months in order for it to learn proper ambush tactics in the wild. When approached by human beings, nine times out of ten… it charges and attempts a frontal attack. Because it has not learnt that man can be dangerous and can stop the attack (i.e shoot it) when seeing it approaching from the front.

P.S: When Asher recently lost his life during the tragic hunting incident, he was attacked by the Cape buffalo not far from the ranch boundary. I have good reason to believe that the Cape buffalo in question, was well aware of where the ranch boundary was before it decided to attack.
For context a 10,000 acre farm is 16 square miles (4 mile by 4 mile). It’s physically impossible for an animal to ever be greater than 2 miles from a fence. Every animal on that property will have seen a fence in its lifetime. I get tired of individuals trying to downplay fencing. You then say a buffalo on a property that’s greater than 50k acres knew where boundary fence was.
 
If you get into a wild area, where a buffalo had bad experiences with hunters or poachers, being shot at, wounded, or having a festering wound on a leg, from a poacher's wire snare, I am pretty certain he will be more aggressive than normal.
Not to mention lions and hyenas, other grumpy buffalo. The will to survive and live another day can not be measured ignored.
 
For context a 10,000 acre farm is 16 square miles (4 mile by 4 mile). It’s physically impossible for an animal to ever be greater than 2 miles from a fence. Every animal on that property will have seen a fence in its lifetime. I get tired of individuals trying to downplay fencing. You then say a buffalo on a property that’s greater than 50k acres knew where boundary fence was.
... And any animal which knows the limitations of it's movements (regardless of how big the area is) will become more aggressive. When they (for whatever reason) come to the conclusion that escape is no longer practical for them. That's how animals behave.

Asher was killed relatively close to the boundary fence when that Cape buffalo decided to attack him. You can feel free to draw your own conclusions about why that unwounded Cape buffalo attacked him. I've made mine. I personally know what happened as I've elaborated several times before on other threads related to his death. All the Cape buffalo on that property might definitely not have been aware of where the boundary fence was. But at least some (including the one which killed him) definitely did. The possibility can't be outright discounted altogether, based only upon the sheer size of the property. To put matters into perspective, a Cape buffalo lives around two decades and it's certainly not implausible for at least some of the Cape buffalo on a property to reach any of the boundaries at least during some point of their lives.
 
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