Wooden ‘Hippo’ makes its way down Thames to St Katharine Docks

Onlookers at St Katharine Docks might spot an unusual sight for English waters as a giant hippo shores up for the next 27 days.

HippopoThames arrived in the Wapping dock on Tuesday night after a month long stay in Nine Elms on the South Bank.

Launching the Totally Thames season of river events, the creature will be taking in a host of London landmarks. The sculpture is the work of renowned Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman, who designed the installation to be semi-immersed in the river so it can rise and fall with the tide.

Hofman’s sculptures often originate from everyday objects, but the design of Hofman’s first UK commission has been inspired by the prehistory of the River Thames, and the hippos that used to inhabit it.

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Plastic waste in the Thames will devastate marine life, report warns

An unseen stream of plastic rubbish flowing along the bed of the river Thames and out into the North Sea will have far-reaching effects onmarine life, a new report indicates.

Scientists from the Natural History Museum and Royal Holloway, University of London, collected rubbish over a three-month period at the end of 2012 from seven locations along the river bed of the upper Thames estuary, between Crossness and Broadness Point.

The team netted 8,490 items including plastic cigarette packaging, food wrapping and cups that may have been blown or washed into the river down storm drains. More than 20% of waste was made up of sanitary products such as pads and plastic backing strips, which had most likely been flushed straight down the toilet. The full extent of the unseen waste could be far worse, the study warned, as plastic bags and other large items may have escaped the small nets used in the study.

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Five porpoises sighted on River Thames

Storm surge could have caused pod of harbour porpoises to travel uncommonly far up the river

A pod of five harbour porpoise has been sighted in the River Thames.

At around 9.30am, the Marine Policing Unit was alerted to the sighting of a dolphin near Tower Bridge. They reported no further sightings until 10.40am, when they confirmed their boat Marine 2 was “following a pod of about five harbour porpoises in the Lambeth area of the river.” 

Stephen Mowat, a marine conservationist for ZSL said it was uncommon to see so many so far up the Thames.

“With the condition of the Thames improving we are getting more and more sightings of marine mammals such as porpoise and seals,” he said.

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Crocodile spotted in River Thames turns out to be James Bond prop

A reported sighting of a crocodile in the River Thames last week sent the public into a tailspin.
However, one local man has helped put the rumours to rest. He claims the alligator is a prop used in the James Bond film Live and Let Die.

Reports last week told how 64-year-old retired university lecturer Richard Smith had seen the monster in the river near his home in Reading, Berkshire while out cycling.

But on Saturday another local man, Michael Law, said it was a dummy man-eater from the scene from the film where 007 Roger Moore has to jump across the backs of alligators.

Mr Law said the prop was kept on an island on the Thames in Reading by boat expert Peter Wallace, former head of Caversham Boat Service, who worked on several James Bond and Indiana Jones films.

He said the fake alligator must have been washed from the island during floods and had been spotted by Mr Smith as it bobbed about on the river.

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Crocodile 'spotted in the Thames'

A retired university lecturer says he got the shock of his life when he spotted a 4ft crocodile in the River Thames.

Cyclist Richard Smith, 64, claims he saw the reptile swimming along the river at Reading, Berkshire, reports the Daily Telegraph.

He said: "I was cycling on my own and I saw what I thought was a bough of a tree with four stubby branches on it close in to the bank.

"As I got closer I saw it was a crocodile. It was about 4ft long. It had a 2ft tail and 2ft body.

"I got off my bike and ran back to where it was, but it had gone. I ran along the river for about 50 yards, but it wasn't there any more."

He came forward with his sighting, from June last year, after a tackle shop worker claimed to have also seen the beast.

Mr Smith added: "The man in the shop said he was on the bank of the Thames near Tilehurst station and he saw a fully grown swan pulled down into the water and it totally disappeared."

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