ENVIRONMENT: Endangered African Hippo Stands its Ground

By James Hall Reprint | | Print |

James Hall

MBABANE, Feb 5 2002 (IPS) - A growing Swazi population combined with a reduction of indigenous animal habitats have led to the extermination of many local species, though one seems intent on standing its ground.

“You can’t push a hippopotamus around, and not expect to be pushed back,” says nature conservationist Danny Dlamini.

A woman in rural Mpaka, near the eastern town Siteki close to the Mozambique border, where a near tropical climate and ample wetlands are home for herds of hippopotami, was recently mauled by one of the large beasts.

Police spokesperson Assistant Superintendent Vusi Masuku relates, “She was rushed to the hospital with a leg wound, but everyone agrees she is lucky to be alive.”

Says conservationist Dlamini, “Just how lucky the woman is can be gauged by a fact most people do not know: Of all the big game animals in Africa, hippos kill more people each year than any other, including crocodiles and lions.”

The reason, Dlamini says, is that hippos and people share a common space for a common need: lakes and rivers for water. Hippos are also nocturnal animals, and accidental encounters with people at night can be fatal.

Hippos are native to the warmer climes of all the contiguous African nations, and found in lakes, rivers and fresh-water swamps. They are formidable adversaries for anyone who disturbs them, due to their great size, weighing more than a tonne, and speed, able to achieve short bursts in excess of 30 kilometres an hour.

But like all denizens of the African menagerie, the hippopotamus, a name that has remained unchanged in the 3,000 years since the ancient Greeks combined the words hippo (horse) and potamos (river) to name the “river horse”, is today facing a loss of living area that threatens the species.

Urbanisation and agriculture continue to devour wilderness areas, while fertilisers, insecticides and other pollutants poison waters where hippos live.

“Hippos are like snakes in that they will never harm someone unless they feel threatened,” says Ted Reilly, executive director of Big Game Parks of Swaziland.

The feature attraction at Mlilwane, the oldest game park in the kingdom, is the afternoon hippo feeding, when tourists glimpse the beast close-up. Park rangers keep the curious safely behind a stone wall.

“The reason the Mpaka hippo attacked the unfortunate woman, who will make a full recovery, is that it had been brutally abused,” says Reilly.

According to conservationists, the hippo, which had been stoned by villagers for several days in an effort to chase it away, like all animals under attack reacted in fear to defend itself when the woman stumbled across it one night after a drinking party.

The hippo had strayed from its usual habitat. This is a story repeated from Swaziland to San Diego, California (where a hippo fled its amusement park home). The wandering California hippo created a media sensation, but the Swazi animal infuriated villagers when it began to devour maize and other crops.

The Mpaka villagers surrounded the pool where it sought refuge, and boys pelted the hippo when it showed itself.

The hippo attack on the woman was inflated into a political sideshow when the Minister of Tourism seemed to mock the Mpaka villagers whose crops were destroyed.

“This was an act of God, because the animal was created by God,” she responded to reporters’ questions about financial compensation from government for crop loss. “If they want to sue someone, they must sue God.”

Game animals are protected in Swaziland by one of the stiffest anti-poaching laws in the world, a model for nature conservation that has reduced the illegal killing of animals by 90 percent since the law’s enactment in 1994.

The law is also credited with saving Swaziland’s rhino population. Under the Game Act, all wild animals are the property of the Swazi king, so killing them is not only a statutory offence carrying costly penalties, but a cultural affront in a deeply traditional kingdom.

A hippopotamus is defined as a ‘Class A’ animal and a person who kills it faces a mandatory prison sentence of 20 years, plus a heavy fine. The killer must also replace the animal, at the prevailing price for a hippo from an animal breeder or a game park.

Currently, the law is being applied in the High Court at Mbabane, the capital of Swaziland, where members of an alleged poaching syndicate found in possession of two rare white rhino horns are being tried in the most significant conservation case of the decade.

The Big Game Parks is warning Swazis to contact them about renegade hippos, and not take matters into their own hands.

In a statement, the park advised, “Hippos are the most difficult and the most costly of all animals to capture. No safe drug has been developed for hippos. Passive capture is the only safe way to catch them, and this is a hugely protracted business.”

But the park’s executive director is sympathetic toward the plight of farmers. “When animals are faced with a choice of green, lush, well-fertilised crops on one hand and dry grass on the other, this is a recipe for conflict,” says Reilly.

The Big Game Parks of Swaziland has urged the Ministry of Agriculture to inaugurate a crop protection plan, providing grants or low-cost loans to fence agricultural land.

“If a crop is worth growing, then protecting that crop must be worth investing in. Agriculture is an investment, and fencing is part of the reckoning – be against cattle, goats or hippo,” says Reilly.

The answer, he says, is as simple as a “single strand of electrified wire and a well earthen, and well maintained second wire at knee height. This will keep any hippo out.”

Ultimately, conservationists say, people and animals must find a way to coexist in their shared environment of Africa. One thing seems certain, the hippo is not going to face extinction without a fight.