The City of Cape Town’s Environmental Resource Management Department has now put plans in place to actively capture the hippo in the Zeekoevlei by darting it. Once captured, the hippo will be transported to its new home at the Gondwana Game Reserve near Mossel Bay. The staff of Gondwana are presently in Cape Town to capture the animal.
While the City acknowledges that there is a lot of interest in the hippo, members of the public need to remember that hippos are wild animals and people are asked to heed the following advice:
- Do not approach the hippo.
- Do not attempt to chase the hippo.
- Do not throw anything at the hippo.
- Do not shoot at the hippo. No standard gun is suitable for shooting hippos. If you wound a hippo, you have created a highly dangerous situation. A wounded hippo may charge on sight and may very well injure or kill you or an innocent bystander. Please leave the management of the hippo to Nature Conservation Officials.
- Please do not take photos of the animal with a flash. It tends to annoy them and may cause the animal to charge.
- Do not attempt to feed the hippo.
Members of the public are requested to report any sightings of the hippo to the False Bay Nature Reserve on 021 396 4281 during office hours and related after-hours emergencies to 083 499 1717.
As part of their monitoring work, the City’s nature conservation staff conducted a close survey of the area and found a second hippo in the Cape Flats Waste Water Treatment Works. The City will closely monitor the movements of this hippo as well, but the focus at present is on capturing the hippo that has been identified for the Gondwana Game Reserve.
The hippos in the False Bay Nature Reserve constitute the only population of this species in the greater Cape Town area. Their presence is a major attraction for visitors to the nature reserve. Hippos occurred naturally in areas like Zeekoevlei, but had all been poached by the early 1700s. The species is presently listed internationally as vulnerable to extinction, with large numbers having been hunted in Africa during the past few decades.
