How many hippos in the world

The pushback has put the government on the defensive. Charles Banda, Tourism Minister, has confirmed that a final decision has not been made. The hippo population on the Luangwa River is currently the largest in the world. The IUCN estimates that around 25, hippopotamus are living in the Luangwa River and notes that there may be as many as 42 hippos per square kilometer on the river at its highest density.

But is this a rare reservoir of wild abundance that should be celebrated or out-of-control hippos that desperately require lethal management? With ,, hippos in the world, they are significantly rarer than the African elephant. They remain imperiled by ongoing habitat loss and degradation as well as poaching for their meat and ivory — their teeth. According to the Zambian government, one of the primary reasons for a cull is the fear of an anthrax outbreak.

This is hardly unfounded as anthrax outbreaks have been seen among hippos populations in Tanzania and Namibia last year. While most of us know of anthrax as a deadly poison used to terrorize people, it is a bacteria that most commonly hits ungulates like cows, sheep and, yes, hippos.

It tends to hit hippos during drought years when their river dries up. No humans were infected in either Tanzania or Namibia during the anthrax outbreaks. No one wants anthrax infecting their wildlife — let alone their people.

But there is little guarantee that killing a few hundred hippos could prevent such an outbreak. The government did not respond specifically to the question of overpopulation, but even an international hunting groups said more information was needed.

The CIC said it would support a hunt if the numbers required a cull and the animal is fully utilized, i. However, a paper by Chansa Chomba with the Zambia Wildlife Authority, notes that hippo meat is rarely eaten in the area due to a local belief that consuming hippo can cause leprosy. As largest land animal in the Artiodactyla order, hippos can have heavy impacts on the environment, including erosion and water quality.

A large number of hippos produce a lot of feces, delivering high amounts of nitrogen and phosphorous into the river system. A paper this year found that hippo feces in the Great Ruaha River in Tanzania impacted both biodiversity and fish abundance — but only during the dry season. Still, sudden fish kills due to hippo poo are likely cyclical, natural events — though exacerbated by human use of the rivers — that have the plus-side of feeding scavengers.

An abundance hippos, of course, can also lead to human-wildlife conflict, and potentially human deaths. Hippos are known to raid crops and will aggressively defend their territory, especially in the water.

A common warning: never get between a grazing hippo and its water source, never cut off its escape route. Exacerbating matters, Zambia, like much of Sub Saharan Africa, has seen its human population boom in recent decades — doubling in less than 25 years — leading to greater conflict with wildlife as its territory inevitably shrinks.

In February of this year, a hippo capsized the boat of two men illegally fishing in Zambia — one of them was almost immediately killed by a crocodile. And earlier this month a man in Zimbabwe was killed by a hippo in his garden.

Certainly, the people who must live with any potentially dangerous animals deserve a say in how governments respond. If a cull is done, the next question however is how best to do it. Currently, the Zambia government is outsourcing the cull to trophy hunting outfits. All rights reserved. A hippopotamus photographed at San Antonio Zoo in Texas. Common Name: Hippopotamus. Scientific Name: Hippopotamus amphibious. Type: Mammals. Diet: Herbivore.

Group Name: School. Size: Head and body: 9. Weight: 1. Size relative to a 6-ft man:. Least Concern Extinct. Current Population Trend: Decreasing. This photo was submitted to Your Shot, our photo community on Instagram. Follow us on Instagram at natgeoyourshot or visit us at natgeo. Share Tweet Email. Go Further. Animals Climate change is shrinking many Amazonian birds.

Animals Wild Cities This wild African cat has adapted to life in a big city. Hippos are the third-largest living land mammal, after elephants and white rhinos. Despite their large and bulky appearance, they have adaptations to their semi-aquatic environments allowing them to move swiftly on both water and land. Their feet have four-webbed toes that splay out to distribute weight evenly and therefore adequately support them on land, and their short legs provide powerful propulsion through the water.

The pygmy hippos digits are more spread out and have less webbing and, proportionally, their legs are longer relative to its body size.

They both have skin tones of purple-gray or slate color, with brownish-pink coloring around their eyes and ears. They have very thick skin that is virtually hairless except for the thick bristle-like hair on their heads and tails. The outer layers of skin are quite thin, making them prone to wounds from fighting.

Their flat, paddle-like tail is used to spread excrement, which marks territory borders and indicates status of an individual. Their powerful jaws are capable of opening up to degrees revealing their enormous incisors. Common Hippo: 2 to 5 meters in length 6 to Hundreds of hippos are shot each year to minimize human-wildlife conflict, despite the fact that ditches or low fences easily deter them.

It is more likely that the popularity of their meat is the reason for this strategy. Their fat and ivory tusks are also valuable to humans. At the beginning of the 21st century, the population of the common hippo declined more than 95 percent in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In , about 5. Hippopotamus teeth have been excluded from many of the strengthened ivory bans now spreading across the world making this vulnerable species at an increased risk from ivory poachers.

While the pygmy hippo is not generally a primary target for subsistence hunting, they are reported to be hunted opportunistically by bushmeat hunters. As human populations grow, they encroach on wildlife habitats as they build new settlements, increase agricultural production, and construct new roads. The hippopotamus once ranged from the Nile Delta to the Cape, but now is mostly confined to protected areas. The primary threats to both hippopotamus species are habitat loss and deforestation.

African Wildlife Foundation helps communities build enclosures, fences, and construct ditches to protect agriculture and farmland from grazing hippos, thereby minimizing human-wildlife conflict.

Located along the Zambezi River, Lower Zambezi National Park is a critical habitat for hippos, elephants, African wild dogs, cheetahs, and more.