A juvenile male elephant isn’t quite sure what to do when he encountered a hefty buffalo in a shared grazing area. After sizing the animal up, he decides to stand his ground and approach the buffalo. Being a young elephant, he still doesn’t really know how to act in this scenario.
The guide on the tour can be heard in the video explaining the event to intrigued onlookers. “You can see he’s a young teen-ager, he’s probably a son of that female that’s walking off there,” he said. “And just being a young boisterous teenager doing exactly what teenagers do!”
Things take an unexpected turn when the elephant casually walks over to the buffalo, and, perhaps in an attempt to display dominance, gives it a bit of a “boop” on the head.
The buffalo is understandably irritated and wants nothing to do with such nonsense. He grunts and chases the elephant off, poking him in the backside with a horn for good measure.
Elephants are generally very peaceful animals, and will usually only act aggressively when they feel threatened.
Although this encounter thankfully saw no bloodshed with the inexperienced elephant running off instead of attacking, adult elephants can and will kill buffaloes when provoked. Click here to watch one such example, in which an angry bull elephant uses his tusks to stab and kill a buffalo
