National Geographic’s Battle at Kruger: The Story of All Africa « Et Cetera: Publick and Privat Curiosities

National Geographic’s Battle at Kruger: The Story of All Africa

May 11, 2008 — disembedded

The Battle at Kruger: The Story of All of Africa

The video that is presented for you below received a 2008 YouTube Video Award, winning as the best video in the Eyewitness Category. Battle at Kruger is an absolutely thrilling documentary that was captured on film while a tourist was on a safari in South Africa’s Kruger National Park. The spine-tingling, astonishing documentary shows a pride of lions attacking a baby wild buffalo, and the entire ensuing breathtaking battle that then took place between the group of lions, the buffalo herd and two crocodiles at a watering hole in Kruger National Park. After the pride of lions and crocodiles had pinned down the cape buffalo calf, the angry herd of buffalo was prompted by the attack to fight off the predators and it eventually saved the babe.

The Battle at Kruger

Toward the end of the video, you can hear a fellow traveler remark, “You could sell that video!” After returning home, David Budzinski, the tourist from Texas who had recorded the stunning scene, did try to sell it, but National Geographic and Animal Planet weren’t interested. Only after the battle, which is alternately horrifying and inspiring, became one of the most popular videos in YouTube’s history did the buyers come calling. Last summer The National Geographic Channel purchased the television rights to the video, and on Sunday night, May 11th, at 9 p.m. Eastern time, it will devote an entire hour to a documentary that deconstructs this thrilling wildlife drama. Caught on Safari: Battle at Kruger is believed to be the first hour-long documentary to be inspired by a YouTube video.

The National Geographic Channel producers took Mr. Budzinski back to Kruger National Park to film the scenes needed for the television version: the group riding in the S.U.V., the tour guide pointing toward the watering hole, the cameraman zooming in. Mr. Cascio, Senior Vice-President for Special Programming at The National Geographic Channel, called the documentary “complementary” to the online video. “We were able to add depth and context,” he said. Wildlife experts analyze the methodology of the lions’ attack, discuss the herd behavior of buffalo and predict whether the buffalo calf will survive the attack. (In the original video it is seen walking shakily back into the herd.)

In the documentary Richard Goss, a wildlife filmmaker for National Geographic, states he that would have loved to have been there with a high-definition camera. However, he admits that, “any film sequence that is revealing and as spectacular as that, I just admire, whoever it’s shot by.”