The thing about wild animals is that they're, well, wild.
When reading that obvious statement, it's not unlikely that a fierce and toothy big cat comes to mind. Or maybe it's a bear or a wolf. But getting too close to a large herbivore can lead to an extremely painful life lesson too.
The unwitting star of a video posted to Reddit exemplifies this.
The short clip, posted to the What Could Go Wrong subreddit, lives up to its filing under this non-question question. It seems to show a man trying to entice, feed, and pet what appears to be a fully grown — read: huge — greater kudu.
As the man reaches for the animal's head, it seems to take the gesture as a threat and moves to attack just as the video cuts out. A reply in the thread appears to confirm that the person in question survived the encounter but needed stitches. Based on the scar's positioning, he was very fortunate not to lose an eye.
The greater kudu is a large antelope species found throughout southern and eastern Africa. As the San Francisco Zoo has noted, a male can weigh up to 700 pounds, and their powerful legs can leap up to eight feet in a single bound.
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With horns reaching up to six feet in length, it's not hard to understand why getting up close and personal with this animal is a seriously bad idea. However, the risk of injury to the human in this situation isn't the only problem.
Feeding wild animals can have terrible consequences for the creatures themselves. The National Park Service cautions that human food is not suitable for wildlife and that feeding animals can cause them to lose their fear of people — a fear that otherwise can serve as a buffer protecting everyone involved.
Unfortunately, visitors to parks and reservations sometimes fail to respect nature and wildlife. There are far too many examples of tourists in eco-friendly destinations spoiling it for others by not adhering to important guidelines. And negative impacts on animal populations can harm the area's overall biodiversity — an essential component of any healthy, resilient ecosystem.
The comments showed little sympathy for the man in the video — and more than a few wanted to see the whole clip.
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Definitely 💯 One quipped, "Some people don't understand how easy it is to be put into past tense. Big boi got them big horns for a reason and they're very good at making your innards outards."
Others took a more serious tone, with one commenter saying, "It's important to remember that this person is in the animal's home with this disrespectful behavior and the animal is doing what its nature says to do."
Another piled on: "You are not snow white, and this is not a Disney movie. Wild animals will kill you without a second thought. Do not play with them."
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