They have struck poses next to stop signs, frightened fishermen and weighing in at over a ton, have remained surprisingly elusive.
In two provinces, two separate hippos have wandered into a town and a city and have made themselves at home... well sort of.
Now that these hippos have tasted city life, the question is what to do with them?
On Christmas Eve, the citizens of Dullstroom in Mpumalanga woke to the news a hippo had taken up residence in their municipal dam.
The Highveld town, known for its cold winters and trout fishing, appeared to be an unlikely destination for a wandering hippo.
“One of the campers came to me and said ‘Hey, there is a hippo in the dam’, and I was like. What are you on?” said Alwin van Niekerk, the owner of Dullstroom on the Dam, which is situated on the municipal dam.
The hippo, he said, appeared agitated by the trout fishermen, but took great interest in the horses grazing near the water’s edge.
Meanwhile, 250 kilometres west of Dullstroom, also in late December, a hippo was caught on cellphone crossing a road in Fourways, Johannesburg. The Fourways hippo was soon to become a social media celebrity.
The Dullstroom hippo only spent a couple of days in the municipal dam before moving off. It was first spotted in a lower dam, before wandering further upstream to the Dunkeld Estate. Then it disappeared.
Hippo expert and Dullstroom resident Francois Krige believes Dullstroom’s newest resident probably made its way up from the Lowveld, close to Nelspruit.
“You are looking at about 120 kilometres along the Crocodile river and every day it is walking about 20 kilometres. So, it is not that far for such a large animal,” he said.
Lowveld hippos have made the trek to Dullstroom before. One arrived in 1993. This hippo was eventually captured and sold to a private game farm. A second arrival didn’t have such a happy ending. The hippo killed a number of cattle and the decision was made to shoot the animal.
Just as with the so-called Fourways hippo, there are rumours there might be more than one hippo in the Dullstroom area. There are claims that two sets of hippo spoor were spotted.
“There is no proof of a second one, they said they saw spoor but by this time we would have seen it,” said Krige.
No one is sure if the Fourways hippo is still stalking the streets of Jozi’s suburbs, or if it is the animal that recently pitched up in a dam in Northern farm.
Just as the Dullstroom hippo has been following the Crocodile river, the Fourways hippo appears to have stuck to the Jukskei.
Teams are now in the area on the lookout for the animal, and they have at their disposal some nifty gadgets. There are drones that can be scrambled if there is a sighting.
For Constant Hoogstad, a senior manager at the Endangered Wildlife Trust, it all comes down to a hippo line out.
He has taken photographs of the hippo in the Northern Farm dam, and hopes if there is a sighting, he can use the images to establish if there is more than one animal.
And, hippos are surprisingly common in the area. There have been sightings, Hoogstad said, over the last six to ten years.
As to where the Fourways hippo might have come from, no one is sure. Hoogstad said it might be an escapee from a private reserve and the owner was not coming forward.
“It is tough because someone is not going to say this is my hippo because if you understand the logistics around catching hippos, it is going to cost you between R30 000 and R50 000 to get it back,” he explained.
Catching a hippo can be complex. A darted hippo will usually make a beeline to the water, where it drowns. The usual plan is game capturers will wait until the hippo has settled in a smaller dam. “They will then erect an electric fence around the dam, while the hippo is in the dam during the day,” said Krige.
A funnel is created with a trap door, and to entice the hippo to walk through the trap door into an adjacent enclosure. Lucerne is used as bait.
Once inside, the hippo is safely darted and then transported.
But finding a new home for the two animals is a decision for the future. For now, there is still the problem of locating them and making sure they don’t have friends with them.