How To Catch A Hippopotamus

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31113, 16 July 1966, Page 12

How To Catch A Hippopotamus

TIOW do you catch a hippopotamus ? First, get a stout branch and a length of rope. Then approach the hippopotamus cautiously in case it charges and seizes you with jaws that can bite a man in half. Next, slip a noose over its neck and pull him out.

There you are. You have a i full-grown, three-ton spec!- ] men of hippopotamus amphibius, the second largest land 1 mammal on earth. That is how Ted Reilly, ] aged 27, of Mbabane, Swazi- 1 land, does it “It’s rather like ; catching fish,” he says, “but it’s harder work.” < Reilly needs hippopotami ! for his game reserve—the i only one in Swaziland. He ; already has rhinoceros, 1 giraffe, kudu, leopard, zebra ' and all the other animals one expects in an African game 1

park. But it lacks hippopotami. The game reserve is in the Hlambanyati Valley of Rider Hagard fame, a valley that Reilly was given by his tinmining stepfather three years ago. Reilly heard that sugarcane farmers at Big Bend, Southern Swaziland, were shooting hippopotami in their area because they were damaging the cane. He obtained permission to try to catch one alive. At 4 p.m. one day he got his first “bite.” It was a full-

grown bull. By a fluke, Reilly lassoed it the first time, using a rope noose on the end of a long tree branch. For the next 24 hours he fought the animal without rest The hippotamus charged with a terrible rush and Reilly’s terrified African assistant dropped the lamp. It went out. The native fled, but Reilly hung on. He hung on right through the night

At dawn some Africans returned and were surprised to find Reilly still battling the hippopotamus. Volunteers joined in with spare ropes.

The struggle progressed through the morning. Reilly did not dare use immobilising drugs because hippopotami normally sink, like battleships from the effects. They drown in sil minutes. In the afternoon, the settlement of Big Bend with tt» shops, garages and farmers’ supply showrooms came to a stop as white and black workers streamed through the cane fields to watch tint and collapsed. Throughout the evening Reilly tried desperately to get more rope around the hippopotamus. He failed each time. The bull charged him frequently and most of the Africans who were helping fled.

Finally only two helpers were left Reilly sent one of them to summon help and the remaining African held a lamp aloft while Reilly played the hippopotamus like a fish by running whenever the rope went slack and advancing whenever the rope was pulled. The hippopotamus was becoming desperate from hunger and exhaustion. At night they normally come ashore and graze. Repeatedly, the bull lumbered from the water and up the bank. Finally it made one big fight. The police arrived to control the crowds. At 4 o’clock in the afternoon, the hippopotamus charged ashore and shook its ropes free. Reilly, in desperation, ran at it and manoeuvred a thick rope around its neck. The rope then was quickly tied to a police vehicle. Thirty minutes later the hippopotamus tottered ashore and collapsed. The crowd helped truss the hippopotamus and winch it aboard Reilly’s truck. He got it back to his game reserve, more than 100 miles from Big Bend, that sane night.

A week later, however, ti e hippopotamus died.