Game Lodge causes uproar after shooting hippo

Animal lovers and activists are outraged after a hippopotamus was shot at the Heia Safari Ranch in Muldersdrift on 30 March.

According to messages on facebook the decision to kill the hippo was based on greed owing to the fact that an open-water swimming event at the ranch had to be cancelled.

Ivan du Plooy, manager at the ranch, contests this though and told the Record that the organisers, who also organise the Midmar Mile Open Water Swimming Event, did so because of the presence of hyacinths and logs in the water that would have made it unsafe for swimmers. This could be verified on Midmar Mile’s website.

Du Plooy also told the Record that the problems with the hippos have been ongoing for the past three years, blaming a neighbouring lodge’s negligence regarding their hippo pool’s fencing.

“We then had to lure the hippos out of the lake and into a smaller dam. Because this lodge demanded their hippos back we had to get a professional game company to catch and transport the hippos back to their owners’ lodge. This would cost us as much as R75 000 a time,” says Du Plooy.

“There were various incidents on the different occasions when the hippos escaped. They were terrorising guests and our workers especially had a hard time since at night they have to walk past the lake to their sleeping quarters.

“Over the three years we constantly kept Nature Conservation informed of the problem and then recently out of desperation we obtained two permits to shoot the hippos. We also got the hunters that Nature Conservation recommended and when one of the hippos ended up in our dam again on Sunday the decision was taken to shoot it,” says Du Plooy.