Hippo makes home at holiday spot

A young hippo believed to have been abandoned by her family is frequenting residential areas

Residents and visitors at St Lucia on the KwaZulu-Natal north coast are becoming used to seeing a rather unusual visitor in the town. A young hippo believed to have been abandoned by its family is frequenting residential areas. But conservation authorities have warned that the animal should be regarded as extremely dangerous.

They have made several attempts to capture the animal, but to no avail. Darting is not seen as an option as it takes eight minutes for the sedative to work and it is feared the hippo could run into the lake and drown.

She has already been named Sandy, and residents describe her as not aggressive and cute. It seems the big drawcard for her is the succulent grass abundant around the holiday apartments.

Bill Bamber, a caretaker at Bridge Holiday Apartments, says: "We are blessed to have a young baby female hippo in our premises. She is coming now approximately eight and half weeks and it has become tamed in the period she is here but unfortunately she has now finished all the grass."

The hippopotamus is a large, mostly plant-eating African mammal and can eat up to 40kg of grass per day. The hippopotamus lives a primarily aquatic lifestyle in the rivers and lakes of sub-Saharan Africa in large groups of up to 40 hippos. During the day they remain cool by staying in rivers; they emerge at night to feed on grass.

Authorities have warned that hippos are responsible for more human deaths than any other animal in Africa.

Christo Grobler, the conservation manager at the St Lucia Estuary, says: "We would like to ask the general public not to approach her in any way or to provoke her because hippos are very dangerous animals." At the beginning of next week plans will be intensified to capture the hippo using passive methods that will not endanger or hurt her.