WARNING: Content may be disturbing to some.
Cheetah kill
I had been wanting to go to Africa for many years to photograph wild animals. However, I did have some trepidation about how I would react if I saw an animal being killed. I have a great love of animals and hate to see any creature injured or killed. So, when I actually saw a wildebeest being taken down by two cheetahs, I was somewhat surprised at how exciting it was to see. Maybe it was the fact I had been in Africa for more than a week and could see first hand how this is a land of survival.
Please excuse the quality of the video. It was getting dark and difficult to focus . . . plus all the excitement made it hard to keep a steady hand.
Through My Lens 
I have no problem in principle – see this sort of the on television all the time, but the sad thing is that it looks as if the wildebeest is heavily pregnant.
That’s sad. I hadn’t noticed that.
Pretty good capture, I’d say.
I used to hunt, and one reason I stopped was the inability to have 100% what I called clean kills. That’s the part that is somewhat bothersome with the above. It takes a while for the wildebeest to die. Some animals are better at killing than others, and perhaps it was the intensity of the moment, but that seemed longer than it should have taken if they’d had a good bite on the jugular or windpipe.
Not that I’m an expert, of course, but suffocation should be pretty quick. It could be these cats haven’t perfected their technique yet . . . or, it could be I’m just blowing smoke out of my . . . er . . . don’t know what I’m talking about.
I’m sure it was awesome, but I couldn’t look. I took a picture once of a black heron who had stolen a gosling. It was up in the tree eating it with the mother crying down below. I knew I had the picture, but I didn’t look at it for years, and then only squinting. 🙂 I still have it, but I don’t do “dead” very well.
I have a hard time doing “dead” too. I would have a difficult time with the heron you saw. But for some reason, this didin’t affect me quite so much. Maybe it was the environment and the struggle for survival.
Great experience!