Rare sighting: Honey badger takes down grysbok on Cape beach [pics]

Extraordinary photographs taken by a local tour guide show a honey badger pursuing and attacking a Cape grysbok on a beach in the Western Cape.

The remarkable images were taken by Jade Stanford, a guide at Lekkerwater Lodge in De Hoop Nature Reserve.

De Hoop, which spans 34 000 hectares, is home to one of South Africa’s biggest reserves of coastal fynbos.

The thicket-loving Cape grysbok flourishes in fynbos scrub. However, this unusual encounter unfolded on the reserve’s surf-washed beach.

According to Stanford, the grysbok made a desperate attempt to escape its pursuer by running into the waves.

“The grysbok went straight into the waves to avoid the honey badger and got washed around and exhausted,” he explained.

The honey badger eventually caught up with the exhausted grysbok. It then mauled the smaller animal’s face before running off.

bokkie Mauled, but gets away

Despite the ordeal, the grysbok eventually managed to get back on its feet.

“The bokkie lay there for a couple hours, and then got up and walked up the beach,” Stanford said.

However, the diminutive antelope’s fate remains unknown. The guide noted that the grysbok’s face was badly injured, and one of its legs “looked in a bad way.”

Natural Selection, which operates Lekkerwater Lodge, described the encounter as an “incredibly rare sighting”, particularly in that area.

Why did the honey badger attack?

Honey badgers, also known as ratels, are famously fearless predators that are renowned for their opportunistic feeding habits.

Their diet includes everything from insects, scorpions and snakes to small mammals and bird eggs. The tenacious African mustelid is also known for fighting off much larger predators.

Nonetheless, an attack on the Cape grysbok remains an especially unusual sighting.

Natural Selection co-founder Colin Bell admitted that the encounter was unlike anything he had seen before.

“No one has ever heard of honey badgers eating antelopes, so no one knows why the attack happened anyway! It’s fascinating,” Bell added.