KwaZulu-Natal’s wandering hippo Nonkululeko was shot dead on Tuesday morning in Durban, Animal Rights Africa said.
Spokesperson Steve Smit said the animal was shot in Riyadh near Verulam at 3am, apparently by members of the eThekwini natural resources department with the assistance of wildlife officials. Smit said three shots had been fired.
”We are very sad it ended this way. We believe this tragedy could have been avoided if wildlife officials acted more decisively to save the animal.”
He said the animal could have been saved if it had been prevented from leaving the area where it had first been spotted.
”Unfortunately very little conservation value is given to a hippo,” said Smith.
The hippo was suspected of killing a Verulam man at the weekend but this had not been confirmed. Police said a post mortem had not yet been carried out on the sixty-year old Ben Dlamini, who was found with a wound to the head.
‘Put down’
eThekwini’s Christo Swart, in a statement, confirmed that the hippo ”was put down”.
He explained that Animal Rights Africa (ARA) had requested an opportunity to capture the animal by July 28 as they had the experience to deal with it.
”Unfortunately soon after this arrangement, the hippo allegedly killed a resident,” said Swart.
”As a responsible municipality, we cannot take a gamble with the lives and safety of our citizens and yesterday [Monday] morning, we took a final decision to put the animal down before any further incidents could occur.
”A wild animal out of its normal habitat is unpredictable when engaging with humans,” he said.
”Last night in a joint operation eThekwini municipality’s natural resources with Ezemvelo KZN wildlife, the animal was put down.”
The hippo had spent the past two months frolicking along the KwaZulu-Natal coast and wandering into gardens on the North Coast. – Sapa