Hippo Stuck in Water Tower

Posted by Miss Cellania in Animal on July 1, 2009 at 9:05 am


A hippopotamus in Alkmaar, South Africa was desperate for a dip to escape the heat, and climbed over ten foot walls to bathe in a water tower! Once in, he couldn’t get out on his own. A farm worker spotted him -or rather, spotted two big nostrils poking out of the water.

Equipped with a hydraulic crane and a cage, hippo hunter Chris Hobkirk and his team from the Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Association set to work. In a four-hour operation, they drained the tank and used poles to gently nudge the hippo into the 3m-long (10ft) steel cage before winching it to safety.

Mr Hobkirk – who has rescued more than 180 stranded hippos in the past six years – said it was a tricky procedure but he was glad with the outcome.

‘Maybe we got lucky with this one. In the past, I have removed hippos from small dams. In those cases, the water levels have always been much lower so this was different.’

Link -via Arbroath


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COMMENT

2 comments to "Hippo Stuck in Water Tower"

  1. vonskippy
    July 1st, 2009 at 6:27 pm

    Must be using NASA engineers to come up with those measurements. There's NO way those walls are 10 ft tall. Nor if they were, there's no Hippo on the planet that could "climb" over them.

  2. peach
    July 2nd, 2009 at 12:25 pm

    If all these Hippos are getting stranded wouldn't it be worth putting in a ramp so the hippos could walk out on their own instead costly rescue missions?


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