In the News...
August 2007
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This month's stories:

Neglected Circus Hippo Starts New Life in S.A. Sanctuary

A hippopotamus who suffered from neglect in a French circus arrived on Friday in a South African wildlife reserve after a flight that lasted over 10 hours, the director of the facility said.

Tonga, 11, which weighed two tonnes, will start a new life in the Sanwild reserve.

“"The flight was approximately 10 hours. He arrived about 09:00 and he is doing very well," Louise Joubert told AFP. 

"He was fed during the flight. He was sleeping in the flight but he anticipated all the excitement and he was full of life when he arrived," she added. 

He was temporarily placed behind an electric enclosure, shielding it away from other animals because he did not yet know how to find food for itself, she said. 

Tonga should be totally free in the 21-hectare reserve in a couple of weeks.
The French Animal Aid Foundation won a court order in February to have the male hippo removed from the circus along with five lions, a tiger and five snakes. 

The circus failed to provide proper veterinary care to the animals, which in the case of Tonga led to dental problems. 

The Brigitte Bardot Foundation offered to pick up the cost of Tonga's transfer by truck to Amsterdam, where it was loaded late Thursday on to a cargo plane for Johannesburg.
"If it had been a wild hippo it would have been quite stressful, but as he is quite familiar with travelling, he was okay during the journey," Joubert said. 

On arrival in Johannesburg, it passed through customs formalities before embarking on a 400km journey to the reserve.

For follow up: Please see our September 07 edition

Sources:  news.yahoo.com & news24.com – 29 & 31 Aug 07 & globeandmail.com 31 Aug 07
3/9/07

Hippo Overpopulation Linked to “Poisoned” Dam

A dam in the Kruger National Park will be emptied this weekend to rid it of an algal poison which has been killing animals over the past two years, park authorities said on Wednesday.
"We didn't take the decision to breach the dam lightly, but our primary concern is to stop the spread and effect of this deadly algal poison," said the Kruger Park's head of conservation services Dr Freek Venter.

The Nhlanganzwane Dam is in the far south eastern area of the park, south of the Lower Sabie rest camp and north east of the Crocodile Bridge rest camp and the entrance gate, said park spokesperson Raymond Travers.

He said the first outbreak of microcystis poisoning was in 2005 when 54 carcasses were found, including white rhino, lion, cheetah and zebra.

At the time, water levels were low and there were 100 hippopotamus living in the dam.
"These large hippo densities probably resulted in higher levels of urinary and faecal eutrophication which, in turn, resulted in an abnormally high level of the algae microcystis spp," said Travers.

However, overgrazing and a veld fire dispersed the hippo population to the Sabie and Crocodile rivers and there were no more deaths until June this year when dead white rhino, Zebra and wildebeest were found - amid renewed high hippo populations.

The microcystis algae had been found in not only the Nhlanganzwanehave Dam, but other dams in the area.

Fencing off the dam was not practical because of the large number of elephant in the area, nor was removing the hippo, which always returned, said Venter.
Travers said construction machines would be on site until August 6.

Sources: SAPA via the Independent Online of South Africa – 1 Aug 07
3/9/07

Hippo Kills Capybara at Florida Zoo

A Capybara at a Florida Panhandle zoo died after it was attacked by an adult hippopotamus, zoo officials said Thursday.

The Capybara, a large aquatic rodent from South America, died the first week of August at The Zoo Northwest Florida, just a month after a baby hippo was fatally attacked by an adult hippo. It is not known if the same hippo killed the Capybara last week because no one witnessed the animal's death, the zoo's veterinarian Dr. Gus Mueller said.

The adult hippo bit the Capybara, causing severe injuries to its rear end and stomach areas, Mueller said.

"It was a terrible, terrible wound," Mueller said. "But that's what hippos do."

Also in July, an adult giraffe died after sustaining a neck injury at the zoo. The Capybara, called Capy, is the seventh death at the zoo since January.

The Zoo Northwest Florida also has reported financial problems recently. Besides the deaths of several popular animals, the zoo faces a $3 million debt exacerbated by back-to-back hurricanes.

Sources: Assoc. Press via MSNBC.com and The Cleveland Examiner (online) – 17 Aug 07
3/9/07

July 07 Articles Archives September 07 Articles