Off the Hook: Monster of a catch for the captain
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It was a fight of a different sort yesterday (Wednesday) morning outside Meerensee Boat Club as two hippos battled it out in the canal, even making landfall on the club’s slipway.
Members of and visitors to the club were making use of the facilities, with school children cooling off in the swimming pool, when the hippos began thrashing about upstream of the club.
‘They had been at each other in the water, right at the banks of the canal, for a while before the fight erupted slightly upstream of the club,’ said Jason Farland who filmed the fight.
‘They then gradually made their way down towards the slipway, fighting all the way, before coming out of the water onto the slipway.
After fighting on the slipway, both hippos went back into the water PHOTO: Rudi Prinsloo
‘They didn’t fight for too long on the slipway before they went back into the water and crossed to the other side of the canal.’
Farland said both hippos were males, which could mean the fight was a territorial dispute.
One hippo was significantly smaller than the other, and it was the smaller one that was being chased by the bigger one.
While hippo sightings are fairly common in Richards Bay, they are usually not action encounters such as this one.
As seen in this video, hippos can be aggressive and, whether they are sighted in groups or as individuals, should be viewed from a respectable distance.
People should never attempt to get close enough to a hippo to take close up photos or selfies as was recently witnessed with a hippo grazing alongside the John Ross Parkway.
Video: see Online Article
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