According to some sources, about 90% of Lake Malawi’s hippos have disappeared in the past 10 years. Steve Moseley joined an expedition to find out if this is true – and to see what can be done about the decline.
Hippos have a patchy but widespread distribution throughout sub-Saharan Africa, with the largest concentrations appearing in the eastern and southern regions. In certain areas poaching and the loss of grassland habitat are steadily reducing hippo numbers. After the trade ban on elephant ivory was introduced in 1990, hippo teeth became sought after as a legal substitute — though this is now being regulated by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. Due to the over-hunting of preferred species in the bushmeat trade, some people are being driven to eat meat previously deemed inedible, pushing aside traditional taboos and totem beliefs.
With these threats to hippo populations in mind, the African Conservation Trust (ACT) started a census along the western shore of Lake Malawi last July. The point of the exercise was to ascertain how many hippos live in the shallows at the edge of the lake, as well as to gather information on hippo-human relationships in the region.
The Lake Malawi hippo project has been undertaken with the assistance of the University of Malawi. The University of Natal is plotting relevant GPS co-ordinates for a Geographical Information System that will assist in ongoing information gathering and interpolation. Expeditions will be carried out two or three times a year to ascertain seasonal migrations, and to gather comprehensive information on numbers and locations.
“These expeditions are a starting point to establish where the hippos are and how much crop destruction they cause,” explains Dr John Mfune of the University of Malawi. “These will then evolve into efficient study groups in specific areas where populations occur. Here it’ll be a priority to study social and scientific aspects and try to marry the two.”
According to a census carried out in 1992, the small landlocked country had 7 619 hippos. But agriculture and high human populations are putting pressure on the animals. In recent times more and more people have settled along the shores of Lake Malawi.
“The decision to ascertain hippo numbers in the lake was made after reports were received that some known populations had declined by 50% in two years,” says ACT’s co-founder and director, Carl Grossmann.
Any decline in hippo numbers could have a far-reaching effect on the lake and the people who rely on it for sustenance. Nutrients transferred through hippos support life in many smaller bodies of water. If the same is true along the edges of larger lakes where fish feed and spawn, fish numbers could fall as a direct result.
Fish stocks in Lake Malawi have declined in recent years and, says Grossmann, the question has to be asked: is this a result of the decline in hippo numbers? The lake is home to more than 1 000 species of fish — 500 of them endemic — and provides 70% of the animal protein consumed in Malawi.
The Lake Malawi hippo project kicked off in the small northern town of Karonga, with a rousing send-off from local residents busy with their daily routine of dish- and clothes-washing on the sandy beach. Expedition members in a semi-rigid inflatable craft motored out to an agreed safety distance of 150m before turning parallel with the shore in a southerly direction.
Over the next three weeks the expedition covered about 800km of shoreline. Two groups of volunteers rotated duties between land and water, the boat crew meeting up at pre-arranged points at the end of most days or, on occasions, sleeping rough along an inaccessible shoreline.
On everyone’s minds at the start of each day were the Mwera winds — seasonal south-east winds that can blow up to 60 or 70km/h and can turn the serene lake waters into a roller coaster of 4m-high swells. Thankfully, these didn’t materialise.
The aim of the expedition was not only to establish hippo numbers through sightings, but also to obtain baseline data from fishermen and villagers along the way. This included information about the type of crops grown in an area, how many harvests there were in a year, at which times hippos were most troublesome, crop protection methods, whether lives were ever endangered or lost, and whether the villagers ate hippo meat.
In accordance with previous estimates, it soon became apparent that hippos do not occur in great numbers in the northern third of the lake. They are seen in small groups at certain times of the year, mainly during the rainy season, and locals say a number of them migrate to the lake from inland reserves via rivers.
In most of the northern region, the escarpment drops steeply into the lake. The rocky shores and deep water are not conducive to the movement of hippos. But what the volunteers lacked in sightings, they made up for in the rare opportunity to gain access to remote pockets of paradise inaccessible by land and to experience traditional Malawi far away from the tourist routes.
Calm bays of turquoise waters surrounded by verdant hills stroked by cool cascades or lazy rivers; small, secluded settlements built around sandy beaches; dugout canoes lining the shore, while smoke wafted from the fish smoking racks and fishermen repaired their nets – it was like a voyage of discovery, finding new civilisations in an unexplored paradise.
South of Nkhata Bay the land levelled off considerably and, although hippo sightings remained low over the next few days, the information gathered will prove invaluable for future planning of education and conservation programmes. It has also brought to light the enormity of the human-hippo conflict.
Malawi is a poor country — among the top 10 in the world and second in Africa. The majority of the population survives on subsistence farming. The hippos cause the most crop damage during the rainy season, when maize and rice are at their most abundant in the fields. This destruction is a big blow to people who rely on farming for their existence, and crop protection methods are not as simple as they might appear.
Because hippos can’t jump, surrounding the fields with trenches is an option used by some sugar estates, but the villagers say the trenches take up too much valuable land which could be used for crops. For now there are only limited protection methods available to them, one being to erect small stilted huts in which farmers spend each night on the lookout for intruders. An array of tins and pots is kept nearby to be banged in the hope the din will send the uninvited on their way. Sometimes the age-old use of fire still comes in handy.
Modern technology’s answer, in the form of electric strands surrounding the fields, is way out of reach for most villages because it costs about $1 000 for 5km. Some villages try to harvest three times a year to make up for the shortfall caused by hippos.
Villagers say if an animal becomes a persistent problem they report it to the village headman, who contacts the district commissioner and asks for the services of a ranger. The animal is then located and shot, the meat is sold to the villagers and the proceeds and ivory go to the government. Whether villagers eat hippo meat depends on their religion and traditional beliefs, but for some it is apparently a tasty treat.
On an earlier recce some of our expedition members saw hippo meat for sale at a roadside stall near Chia lagoon. When we arrived two weeks later, the meat had apparently just been sold out but rumour had it that another hippo was being sought for killing and there would be more meat. We were unable to confirm that this was the case and didn’t see any hippo meat for sale in other locations where it reputedly should have been available.
George Kloeble, chairperson of the Wildlife Action Group in Malawi, says people need to be shown that they can make money from hippos through tourism. His organisation is in the process of creating a hippo and bird sanctuary near Senga bay, and he hopes this will be the beginning of a new awareness of wildlife along the lake shore.
Depending on whom we spoke to, we were given vastly differing hippo numbers. Some figures varied from 600 to just 30 in a certain area and time restraints meant these numbers were hard to verify. Sightings were also hampered by unusually high water levels, which helped the hippos to hide in the reed beds and marshes fringing the shore.
Although it will take at least two more expeditions to get a better idea of actual numbers, all indications are that the hippo population has declined drastically in recent times. According to some sources, there has been a 90% devastation of the lake’s population in the past 10 years. The expedition sighted only 55 individuals in the entire 800km we covered, with the largest pods numbering eight individuals.
Some scientists argue that Lake Malawi has never been suited to large numbers of hippos, and it is true that a lot of its shoreline is unsuitable habitat. But Unaka and Chia lagoons, both vast stretches of calm water, are linked directly to the lake and have suitable habitat around their perimeter, so hippos should thrive there in great numbers.
The expedition count for the two lagoons was eight at the entrance to Unaka and nil at Chia, while local estimates totalled 16 and 35 respectively. Richard D Estes, author of The Behaviour Guide to African Mammals, says there should be an average of seven hippos per 100m along a lake in its natural state.
Grossmann was happy with the completion of the first census. “It was an incredible achievement,” he says. “Very few people have ever undertaken such a trip and, although hippo numbers were way below those expected, the information gathered will assist in the planning of future expeditions.”
Many questions have been brought to the fore as a result of the expedition, but the biggest remains: can a compromise be found that will enable hippos and humans to live in close proximity? The ultimate goal of ACT is to achieve sustainable use of a resource through education, and to set up community-run conservancies that ensure the hippos of Lake Malawi do not become just another statistic. n
Contact the African Conservation Trust: [email protected]