Hippo bite kills Taiwan tourist in Kenya

13 August 2018

A Taiwanese tourist has died after being bitten in the chest by a hippo he was trying to photograph in Kenya.

Chang Ming Chuang, 66, was tracking the animal at a wildlife resort on Lake Naivasha, 90km (56 miles) north-west of the capital, Nairobi.

A second tourist, also from Taiwan, was injured. Wildlife officials later shot dead the hippo.

High water levels have seen hippos - the world's deadliest large land mammal - stray on to resorts for pasture.

The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) initially identified the two tourists as Chinese but Taiwan's foreign ministry later confirmed they were Taiwanese nationals.

Kenya has no formal ties with Taiwan and recognises China's claims over the island.

Witnesses said the two had come too close to the animal near the Sopa hotel. The bitten man was rushed to hospital bleeding profusely but later died.

The second tourist, named as Wu Peng Te, was treated for minor bruising at Naivasha District Hospital.

"Our officers tracked and shot the animal after the incident," said KWS warden Nelson Cheruiyot.

Read on 

Dramatic update on Douglas the orphaned hippo

The story of Douglas, the orphaned hippo raised at Chipembele Wildlife Education Trust in Zambia was reported in Wildlife Extra in last year.

Douglas is now two and a half years old, although not yet his full size, having about two and a half tonnes of growing still to go! he is fending for himself, however, and interacting with other hippos in South Luangwa National Park.

His life is not without incident, though, as the latest update from Chipembele's Steve Tolon reveals. Steve wrote:

"Douglas has become more independent and 'chilled', and doesn't bother us anywhere near as much as he used to.

"He was always pushing open an outside door and sneaking in, sometimes sleeping in the bedroom until discovered.

Continued ...

Los Angeles Zoo sees first hippo birth in 26 years

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Los Angeles Zoo has received a real treat for Halloween — the birth of its first hippopotamus in 26 years. It was a bit of trick, too, because the mother was on birth control.

The zoo says the baby was born Friday. It was somewhat of a surprise, but staffers had noticed the mother hippo gained weight, which made them suspect she was pregnant.

Vets haven't determined the sex of the new hippo. But they say the baby appears to be doing well and is bonding with mom.

Media will get to see the newborn Tuesday in its public debut.

The mother, 10-year-old Mara, came to the zoo in December from Topeka, Kansas. The father is a 3-year-old named Adhama, who arrived from the San Diego Zoo last year.

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Orphaned hippo Douglas has been successfully released back into the wild

An orphaned baby hippo named Douglas, who captured the hearts of many after he starred on ITV1’s ‘Paul O’Grady’s Animal Orphans’ with his two terrier friends Molly and Coco, has been successfully released back into the wild in zambia.

Back in February 2013 Douglas was just two weeks old and close to death when he was rescued by Conservation Lower Zambezi and sent to the Chipembele Wildlife Education Trust (CWET) to be under the care of experienced wildlife rehabilitators Anna and Steve Tolan. This was the first time Anna and Steve, had taken in a hippo.

Steve Tolan said: “We constructed a pool and brought in dedicated carers to look after Douglas who initially was bottle fed and looked to his human carers for reassurance and companionship and even swimming lessons.

“Douglas has now been fending for himself since he was weaned in January and is surviving and thriving. He has made his first few attempts to join the wild pod in the Luangwa River. It will probably be a long, slow process until he is fully accepted into the pod but he is on his way.”

To find out more about Chipembele and the work it does click here 

Watch Douglas's story below 

Read on ...

Hippo found wandering the streets after being let out for park stroll

Sunday 8 Jun 2014 11:37 am

Taking your pet for a walk in the park is a very normal thing to do – unless you have a pet hippo.

This hippo was seen aimlessly mooching around town after it had been let out of its cage to stretch its legs in a local park.

Mexican police in the town of Tlajomulco de Zuniga surrounded the beast and herded it into its cage.

The man claiming to own the hippopotamus was subsequently arrested after he lacked the documentation to prove his ownership.

http://metro.co.uk/2014/06/08/hippo-found-wandering-the-streets-after-being-let-out-for-park-stroll-4753914/

Escaped hippo swam out of flooded zoo

A hippo escaped from a flooded Chinese zoo by simply swimming over her fence to freedom.

The animal is now swimming around freely in a local river leaving zoo officials puzzled as to how to catch her again.

They say the hippo shows no interest in leaving the water in Shantou city, in Guangdong province in southeast China.

A zoo spokesman said: "We had extreme weather with flooding caused by the tropical storm Usagi, and the water was so high it allowed the hippo to simply swim over the fence to her enclosure and away."

She ended up in a nearby river where she has become a tourist attraction, and is being fed cabbages and vegetables by locals who throw them into the water.

The hippo came to the zoo in 2008 and had been there for five years before staging the break out.

Local officials have warned people not to approach the beast, saying they can be very dangerous and can easily overturn a boat or badly injure a swimmer if anyone were to get too close.

http://web.orange.co.uk/article/quirkies/Escaped_hippo_swam_out_of_flooded_zoo

River guide swallowed by hippo, lives to tell tale

BEVERLY HILLS, Mich. – Paul Templer knew his would-be murderer. He was sort of hard to miss. After all, he was a two-ton hippopotamus.

The Michigan native recounted his amazing tale in the London Guardian’s “Experience” serieslast week. Considering Templer was swallowed by a hippo and lived to tell about it, other stories in the series may end up failing in comparison.

At the time of the swallowing, Templer was a 27-year-old river guide giving tours down the Zambezi river near Victoria Falls along the African border of Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Everything started when one of Templer’s apprentices got his small kayak – complete with two worried tourists – hi-centered on the back of a large hippo. Templer said he paddled furiously back upstream in an attempt to assist the kayak.

That’s when he was “engulfed into darkness.”

“There was no transition at all,” Templer said. “No sense of approaching danger. It was as if I had suddenly gone blind and deaf.”

The hippo had chomped down on Templer’s left arm and chest. A doctor would later find over 40 puncture wounds spanning the area. A confused Templer wrestled for his life.

Read on:  http://fox13now.com/2013/05/09/river-guide-swallowed-by-hippo-lives-to-tell-tale/