I'd like to know who first came up with the statement thst Hippos kill more people in Africa than anythin else. I reckon it's a load of old tosh! Probably written by some know-nothing journo from one of the glossies.

In my opinion there are plenty of other things in Africa that kill far more people. Such as Crocs, snakes, mosquito, tsetse and that's without going into the AIDS thing!

The thing about Hippos is that every time they kill somebody they leave bits of them laying about all over the place. Crocs for example leave no trace whatsoever. If you travel into some of the real remote wilderness areas the mentality of the local populations is so fatalistic you wouldn't belive it. They will lose someone to a flatdog one day and go back to the same place for more water the very next day.............. Hippos my arse!

Going back to close encounters of the dangerous kind. I ended up with a leopard on top of me about 3 years ago, but not for long. I was able to shoot it with my sidearm before it stuffed me up much. All I ended up with was a few scratches. I was the luckiest man alive.
Cheers