Battle at Kruger!

When I see the word "Kruger" at first I think of Mr. Kruger who was one of George's bosses on "Seinfeld." You know, he's the guy who gave away George's prefereed "T-Bone" nickname and instead dubbed him "Koko the Monkey." This instance of Kruger however stands for Kruger National Park in South Africa, a park where David Budzinski happened to be on a safari and where he caught on film a water buffalo calf / group of lions / two crocodiles / water buffalo herd battle royale the likes of which I, and many others, have never seen.

I first learned of this YouTube phenomenon in the NYT of all places - I know, right? Go figure. So far, the clip has racked up over 30 million page views. It has its own web site now and Nat Geo has filmed an entire special about it due to how a herd returns en masse to try and save a little calf's life.

It's a pretty intense 8 min - I actually found myself gasping at the video at the exact same time as when those who were there in person gasped - pretty wild (no pun intended) stuff indeed.

At the end of the video you hear someone say “You could sell that video!” and as the Times reports Budzinski tried but National Geographic and Animal Planet were not interested. It was only after the battle became one of the most popular videos in YouTube’s history did the buyers come calling. This Sunday at 9 p.m. Eastern time, it will devote an hour to a documentary deconstructing the drama. Pretty neat stuff. It just goes to show that the media walls keep falling.