Hippopotami have been the talk of the Trinity College Zoology department’s tea room recently. Mainly because a number of staff are about to embark on a field trip to Kenya with some undergraduate students and hippos have featured highly on the list of possible animals which an encounter with might result in death or injury, I therefore decided to investigate, partly to allay fears but mainly to stir them.
In a recent study by Dunham et al. (2010) they investigated human-wildlife conflicts which have resulted in death or injury. The fact that Hippos are one of the most dangerous animals in Africa is common knowledge (in our tea room anyway), but the good news is that crocodiles are far more dangerous. Oh and lions, lions are really dangerous, but mostly crocodiles. In Mozambique crocodiles have killed more people than all other animals combined. More good news for our would-be travellers, only 55% of hippo attacks resulted in death, whereas the figure is close to 80% for crocodiles and alarmingly even higher for elephants. Though chillingly there have been reports of Hippos abandoning herbivory for a more carnivorous lifestyle.
Overall it is good news, hippos are not in fact that dangerous as long as you can manage to keep away from the water. So our intrepid explorers can relax in their campsite in their tents on the shores of lake Naivasha just remember hippos come onto land at night to feed, so perhaps pitch your tent away from the juicy grass.
Author
Keith McMahon: mcmahok[at]tcd.ie
Photo credit
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