A Topi kills another Topi

While on a game drive today in the Masai Mara game reserve, i witnessed something i have never seen in my 18 years of guiding!.

I was with guests, doing a game drive just below lookout hill in the south of the reserve. We had stopped to watch one of the 2 nomadic male lions that moved inot the area recently. While we watched the sleepign lion, i would occasionaly scan the palins to see if i can pick up something else more interesting than ‘just a sleeping lion’

I saw 2 male Topi fighting in a dicastance, and i didnt give them a second look since this is not the ruttung season so i treated this as the normal tease fighting, whihc is common among the antelopes here. I had another look and i chaznegd my mind whne i noted the fight was more serious. I then alerted another guide on radio who was also watching the same lion, but had not seen what was happening with the Topi. When i approached the Topis, i noted one was bleeding badly on the inside of the upper thigh. As i was wondering, if the fight had caused all these, then the other male Topi went for him again and gored him again on the same place, know him down where he proceeded to hit him with the horns until the other Topi laid down unable to get up.

As we watched this, a hyaena came running from down wind, obviously having smelled the blood from teh injured Topi; When he got there the other Topi left. The injured one on seeing the Hyanea, pulled himself together and struggled to his feet and tried to ward off the Hyaena, but the Hyaena just ran in circles to avoid its horns and eventually managed to grab it from teh back an dpulled it down, then proceeded to do what Hyaneas do best; eat the animal while still alive. While this hapened, we did not realized that a flock of vultures was circling above us. They started decending one after the other until there were 60 of them! The Hyaeana was soon joined by 6 others.

The sleepignlion, later woke up when he saw some vultures landing in a distant, and decided to follow them and investigate. He managed to come closer to the carcass before teh Hyaenas teamed up an dsaw him off! My guests then asked me, so who is the king of the jungle here?

This marked an xtraordinary morning for me since i have never seen a Topi kill another; the rest of this of the sighting was not rare since i have seen this before.

 The 2 Topi fighting it out

 One gores the other badly

 The injured Topi struggles to get up

 It could not and just lay down flat groaning in pain; A hyaena came along

 The Topi tried to run on seeing the Hyaena but was badly injured

 Eventually it fell down and the hyaena took charge

 A fatal grip

 The lone hyaena feed on it and kept fighting off the vultures

 Soon he was joined by others

 Then there was unease, when  a lion appeared on the horizon

 The lion could not get too close because the hyaenas were more

 They saw the lion off

But some times the lion would give them a fright!