Then they realized it was breathing …
Recently, miners in Phalaborwa, South Africa, were out on the job when they noticed something that stopped them in their tracks. There, halfway submerged in one of the mining pits, was a massive gray lump.
It didn’t take long for the miners to realize that the lump wasn’t a lump at all, but a wayward hippopotamus who’d wandered into the pit and gotten stuck in the mud. Soon, members of the Phalaborwa Natural Heritage Foundation (PNHF), Dr. Rita Piso from Mangata Wildlife Veterinary Services, Ledet conservation officials and staff from Foskor mine were standing by, eager to get the hippo to safety.
Piso carefully immobilized the hippo using a stun dart. Once the animal was safely sedated, rescuers used a front-end loader to scoop the hippo out from the mud. Then, rescuers loaded the hippo into a truck and drove him to safety.
Eventually, the hippo arrived at the Olifants River, part of an open system included in the greater Kruger National Park.
Free at last, the grateful hippo bounded out of the truck bed, back into the clear blue river. Here in the wild, the hippo, once confined to a mud pit, had plenty of options.
“He could move up or down the Olifants River, into the Selati River, one of the dams on the surrounding reserves, or into the Kruger National Park itself,” PNHF managing director Eugene Troskie told The Dodo.
Now that the hippo is back where he belongs, Troskie feels hopeful about the animal’s future happiness.
“He is a big bull and stands a very big chance of being successful,” Troskie said. “There is a very real possibility that he has not had contact with another hippo in quite some time, and we reckon he will be very happy when he bumps into some cows in the area.”
