Close call as Calgary Zoo hippos almost slip out.
CALGARY — At one point last weekend, Dr. Jake Veasey sat on a parked Bobcat, a rifle by his side, his eyes glued to the doors of the Calgary Zoo’s hippo enclosure.
As the Bow River flooded the African Savannah area of the zoo, two deadly hippos were in danger of escaping.
Worst-case scenario, they could have swam through the flooded zoo and escaped into the river, said Veasey, the director of animal care, conservation and research.
“We could have had hippos God knows where. They could have been 20 or 30 miles downstream,” he said Tuesday.
Over 10 hours on Thursday, staff relocated more than 160 animals in danger to the zoo’s animal health centre. They moved half the mammal collection and more than a third of the bird collection. More than half of the zoo’s collection is packed into the space, Veasey said.
After poring over topographical maps of the island, staff made the “very sad” decision to leave behind animals they thought could survive in a few feet of water, Veasey said.
Veasey went back onto the island Friday at 4 a.m. to assess the state of the remaining animals and to feed them. The elephants were muddy but otherwise fine. Same with the camels and gorillas.
But what Veasey found when he eventually swam into the African Savannah at 5 a.m. was hair-raising: two shivering giraffes up to their bellies in cold water, and water levels so high that the two hippos were floating metres above where they were supposed to be.
Zoo personnel had to move concrete blocks in front of the building to prevent the hippos from escaping, Veasey said.
At one point they parked a Bobcat out front and Veasey sat on top, holding a rifle in case the hippos escaped.
At the same time, the giraffes desperately needed to be moved. Veasey donned a dry suit and, taking a large-calibre rifle for protection, swam into the enclosure’s back area with other staff members.
Asked if he risked his life to rescue the giraffes and the hippos, Veasey balked for a moment, then nodded. “Yes. Yeah.”
Back with the hippos on Sunday, the female wasn’t too much trouble. She never left the holding area. But the more adventurous male — a 6-1/2-year old named Lobi — had been swimming around the enclosure, squeezed through a keeper door and wedged himself into a narrow corridor. He was stuck, but staff built a ramp and squeezed him back into the hippo holding area.
“It was kind of like squeezing toothpaste back into a toothpaste tube,” Veasey said.