Douglas the orphaned hippo survives lion attack

This video says about itself:

Hippo‘s Second Chance, Chipembele Zambia

19 May 2013

In Feb 2013 a baby hippo was found alone and distressed on the banks of the Zambezi River. He was rescued and cared for by Conservation Lower Zambezi. In May 2013 with ZAWA approval and the generous assistance of Proflight Zambia he was flown to Chipembele Wildlife Education Trust to our rescue and rehabilitation facility on the banks of the South Luangwa River.

From Wildlife Extra:

Dramatic update on Douglas the orphaned hippo

The story of Douglas, the orphaned hippo raised at Chipembele Wildlife Education Trust in Zambia was reported in Wildlife Extra in last year.

Douglas is now two and a half years old, although not yet his full size, having about two and a half tonnes of growing still to go! He is fending for himself, however, and interacting with other hippos in South Luangwa National Park.

His life is not without incident, though, as the latest update from Chipembele’s Steve Tolon reveals. Steve wrote:

“Douglas has become more independent and ‘chilled’, and doesn’t bother us anywhere near as much as he used to.

“He was always pushing open an outside door and sneaking in, sometimes sleeping in the bedroom until discovered.

“He still has an annoying habit of turning on the outside tap and draining off all the water in the tank overnight, as he wants to drink some clean water!

“There was a big drama here recently, though… Doug got attacked by two lions! It started up near the staff house around 23hrs, and the men saw one lion jump on his back and bite him, the other attacked his rear legs. But then he ran to our house, chased by the lions.

“The dogs alerted us and as I opened the front door, I heard something big coming, so I pushed the door half-shut and ran to grab my torch.

“Doug tried to get into the front door, before running off into the pond, the lions still after him!

“I went out with a big torch and the lions ran off. To begin with, I didn’t know if he had bad injuries as he wouldn’t come out of the pond the following morning.

“When he did come out we saw there were two deep bite marks on his shoulders, scratch marks on his sides and minor bite marks to his rear legs… He was lucky!

“I sprayed him with a wound spray and he should be fine.”

So Douglas is learning what life in the wild is all about, good and bad, but thanks to his adoptive family he is getting the best possible start in life.