Hunted / Season 1, Episode 9
The River
APEX Season 1, Episode 9: "The River" --- [CHAPTER 1: THE RIVER HORSE] Dr. James Oduya had a rule: never underestimate a hippo. In twenty years of wildlife veterinary work across sub-Saharan Africa, he'd been charged by elephants, stalked by lions, cornered by cape buffalo. He had the scars to prove it—a long ridge across his left arm from a leopard, three broken ribs from a rhino, a permanent limp from a crocodile that had grabbed his leg in 2015. But hippos scared him more than all of them combined. The numbers didn't lie. More humans died from hippo attacks than from any other large animal in Africa—nearly 500 per year. They were faster than they looked (35 kilometers per hour on land), stronger than they seemed (their bite force exceeded 1,800 pounds per square inch), and more aggressive than most people imagined. Hippos weren't like lions, which killed to eat. They weren't like elephants, which killed to protect. Hippos killed because they were angry, territorial, and utterly intolerant of anything that entered their domain. And on that June morning, as James guided his research boat up the Rufiji River in southern Tanzania, he entered the domain of the largest hippo he'd ever seen. [CHAPTER 2: THE BULL] The team was small: James, his research assistant Amara, and their boat...