How You Helped the Hippos

By Karen Paolillo

Thanks to the British public, Care for the Wild, and with special thanks to Mr Henry Hallward (CFTW"s consultant) 11 Turgwe hippo and 35 other animals now have access to vital clean water to drink and bathe in.

When Henry came to see me from the UK, I had been feeding these hippo for four months. He stressed that my first priority was to somehow get water back into this area before the Turgwe River totally dried up. If this were the case, not only would the hippos quickly become dehydrated, but the other species reliant on the water would also perish.

A plan was swiftly put into action. Mr Roger Whittall, who is one of the owners of Humani Ranch, 110,000 acres of bushveld bordering the hippos' river - agreed to allow water from boreholes to be diverted to this area. He also offered the use of his workforce and bulldozer to construct a large cemented pan which would eventually hold the bathing water and then overflow into all the other water points.

Through CFTW, the piping (some 7 kms) and the cement was bought. In the meantime a track was bulldozed through the bush to lay the pipes. In a nutshell, this plan of action included:

The building of water troughs for the hippo and other animals to drink from.
The filling of a natural rock pool in the river for "Happy," a single bull hippo.
The building of a pan for the main school of hippos, formed by "Bob" and his family.

For this pan we chose an area close to my feeding station at the rear of the camp. The main idea was to try and hault any further disturbance within the riverine area, as the noise of the machines and men would have caused more upset at this stressful time. We initially bulldozed a section of a small affluent of the Turgwe River and then working manually, my husband, Thomas - the African builder - and seven other men constructed two rock walls either side of the area which would eventually contain around 70.000 gallons of water.

The bottom and sides were laid with rocks which were cemented over to stop the precious water from seeping into the soil. The bottom was smoothed over to prevent the jagged rocks from hurting the hippos' rubbery feet. However, we made sure that it was not too smooth that the hippos would slip. The final result is a beautiful pan approximately 75 feet long, 35 feet wide and 6 feet deep in places, which is deep enough for even Bob, the biggest bull, to submerge. The idea is that this pan/dam will last many years in case, God forbid, such an awful drought reoccurred.

During the working period, water was pumped through the newly laid pipes to the natural rock pool below the camp, which gave enough water to moisten the skin of all the hippos. Eventually, we hoped that this pool would be adopted by Happy, once Bob's family had their own pan. However, animals usually decide what they want to do, not humans, and Robin (a newly matured bull from Bob's family) has moved permanently into Happy's pool.

Bob and Happy's drinking troughs were completed first, and after one night of perusal, they readily took to them. Drinking alongside the hippo are waterbuck, kudu, impala, warthogs, bushpig, vervet monkeys, baboons and twice I have recorded the spoor of hyena. I have observed that Happy drinks 150 to 160 liters of water per night, a quantity which he would have been unable to find without your help. His trough is filled by hose-pipe from our sink in the camp, and I checked with torchlight to see when it needs replenishing. The water is pumped into our tank via the new pipeline. We have just completed building Happy his own personal dip made from rock, brick and cement, so at least through the summer he can keep his skin moist. All this work took six and a half weeks, a miracle in itself when working in Africa. Bob's family spend at present up to five hours each night in their pan, splashing, frolicking, grunting, and behaving very naturally in their man-made environment. Due to this terrible drought, they still live in the thick Jesse bush in the riverine during daylight hours, though I feel with the approaching summer months and the heat, they will soon be using the pan during the daytime as well.

I am very concerned for Happy, a hippo bull I have developed a special relationship with. As a mature bull, he cannot live with the others so he leads his solitary existence, eating and drinking 150 meters from Bob and his family at the front of our camp. Unfortunately, Robin and Bob have attacked Happy several times, so now I stand guard over him each evening until he has eaten and drunk sufficiently.

My feeding program continues as well, the food being mainly soya bean hay and a survival ration made of cotton seeds, cane tops, maize and molasses for bulk, and game pellets for protein. It is laid out by myself and Eliot, my African assistant, each evening in the form of a layered sandwich measuring 3 feet high by 27 feet long. After making careful studies of the hippo, I increased the recommended diet to approximately 42 kg of food per hippo per night. All the resident animals in this area now look very well. Hippo and waterbuck cows are coming on heat, and fights are occurring between bulls. All species are behaving normally.

In this time of drought a haven for some wild animals has been created.None of this could ever have happened without your help. On behalf of the Turgwe Hippos and all the other species who have benefited. We thank you.

Karen Paolillo