Elephant chases wild dogs, intimidates police in South Africa

July 27 (UPI) -- A visitor to a South African national park captured video of an elephant that chased a pack of wild dogs and stopped to intimidate some police.

The video, posted to YouTube by Kruger Sightings, was recorded by Beryl Venter, 61, during a recent visit to the park.

Venter said the tour group was headed out of Kruger National Park after a somewhat disappointing five-day stay at the park's Letaba Rest Camp.

"We were on our way home from Letaba after a five-week stay in Kruger -- feeling very depressed and not expecting any 'wow' sightings," Venter said. "We were then suddenly very excited to see the wild dogs running around and playing in the road -- twenty-one of them."

The video shows an elephant charge onto the road and aggressively chase the wild dogs.

Most of the canines flee, causing the elephant to turn its attention to a nearby police vehicle.

The police car urgently reverses as the elephant charges toward it, and the pachyderm stops its run toward the car when it honks its horn.

"The story could have ended very differently if the elephant kept on running towards us and the other vehicle did not hoot," Venter said.