Hippo breaks out of lockdown to take a stroll on Kenton beach
A hippo this week opted to flout lockdown regulations when it escaped its reserve, floated down the Kariega River and went for a stroll on the beach at Kenton-on-Sea.
Thrilled residents discovered the huge tracks on the beach on the western side of the Kariega river mouth and took to social media to see if anyone knew what could have made them.
Amakhala Game Reserve field guide Eric Barnard, 21, who happened to be at Kenton at the time, immediately headed down to the beach to see if it could possibly be what the photos suggested.
“It was definitely hippo tracks. Nothing else comes even close to that.
“Either that, or it was the world’s biggest dog.”
He said hippos could travel as far as 40km in a short time in search of food.
“It is likely to be a male looking for food or new territory.”
It was likely it broke through a game fence somewhere upstream and caught the outgoing tide to float down the picturesque meandering river course to the slipway near the river mouth, he said.
There are several game reserves upstream, but the most likely is the Kariega Game Reserve through which the river meanders.
Barnard said it was possible that the hippo would head back upstream in search of food.
However, he said that if it chose to hang around Kenton, people should avoid it if possible.
“If you come across it, give it plenty of space. They are territorial, move fast and are deadly. If you get between it and the water you are in big trouble.”
The hippo is considered one of Africa’s most dangerous animals. He said people should immediately contact the authorities if they came across the hippo.
This is not the first hippo to wander in the area.
In 2001 a hippo, fondly named Dunk by the locals, strolled some 65km from the Great Fish River Reserve to the Sunshine Coast.
She spent some time in Kleinemonde before being caught and returned to her home.
Hippos are notoriously difficult to capture. They tend to return to the safety of water when threatened and can drown if they are darted and sedated when they take to the water.
The country’s most famous hippo, Huberta, made world headlines in the late 1920s when she covered some 1,600km in three years.
She started her trek from her St Lucia estuary home in Zululand in November 1928 and reportedly meandered across roads, railways and cities along the coast before reaching East London in 1931.
She had some famous encounters with humans in places like Durban, where she trampled golf courses and crashed garden parties.
She was shot and killed while basking in the Keiskamma River in April 1931.