Eleven people, including children and a baby, were missing after a hippopotamus capsized their boat in southwestern Ivory Coast, a government official said Saturday.
The West African nation’s minister for national cohesion and solidarity, Myss Belmonde Dogo, said on her Facebook page that the missing included women, little girls and an infant.
She said the hippopotamus tipped the narrow, canoe-like boat over on Friday, as it was motoring along the Sassandra River near the town of Buyo.
Three people survived the incident and were rescued, and “a search is ongoing in the hope of finding the missing victims,” she said.
A 2022 study by Ivory Coast university researchers found that hippopotamuses were the species most mentioned in interactions with humans that caused deaths or injury in the country.
There are an estimated 500 hippos in Ivory Coast, distributed among the various rivers in country’s south, mainly the Sassandra and the Bandama water courses.
Boat accidents are fairly common in the country, as handcrafted longboats are used to navigate between waterside communities, and are frequently overloaded with passengers and goods.
In April, a dozen children and adolescents drowned when the boat they were on capsized in a lagoon near the principal city of Abidjan.
Estimates of how many people are killed by hippos each year vary, with lower figures beginning at around 500.
In June 2024, a woman from New Jersey was killed in an hippopotamus attack during a safari in Zambia. The woman’s husband later sued the U.S. company that arranged the trip.
In 2023, seven people were killed, including a 1-year-old child, in the southern African nation of Malawi when a hippo charged into a canoe and capsized it on a river.
In 2018, a Chinese tourist and a local fisherman were killed in hippo attacks on the same day in Kenya.
Hippos are the world’s second-largest land mammals after elephants, measuring about 11 feet long and about 5 feet tall, according to International Fund for Animal Welfare. The average male hippo weighs about 7,000 pounds.
Hippos make their own sunscreen. And it’s all natural!
Sunny Hippos
Hippos spend a significant amount of time submerged in water to keep cool under the hot African sun. However, they can’t stay underwater forever. When they emerge, they’re exposed to the same UV radiation that has us humans slathering on sunscreen. But nature has equipped hippos with a remarkable solution.
Hippos secrete a reddish fluid from their skin, often referred to as “blood sweat.” But don’t be alarmed; it’s neither blood nor sweat. This secretion is unique to hippos and serves multiple purposes, including acting as a potent sunscreen. This natural sunscreen is crucial for their survival, protecting their sensitive skin from sunburn and possibly even skin infections.
The Science of “Blood Sweat”
What makes this “blood sweat” so special? It’s a combination of two distinct pigments: one red (hipposudoric acid) and one orange (norhipposudoric acid). These pigments absorb ultraviolet light, preventing damaging rays from penetrating the hippo’s skin. Moreover, this secretion is both antibacterial and antifungal, providing an all-around protective barrier for the hippo’s skin.
Researchers have studied these pigments, hoping to unlock their secrets for potential applications in human sunscreens. The idea of a sunscreen that not only protects from UV radiation but also offers antibacterial and antifungal benefits is certainly appealing.
How Hippos Make their Own Sunscreen
The hippo’s “blood sweat” isn’t just about sun protection. This secretion also helps to regulate their body temperature. As the liquid evaporates, it cools the skin, much like sweating does for humans. This is vital for an animal that spends time in both the scorching heat and the water.
This multifaceted secretion underscores the complexity of nature’s adaptations. Hippos, with their massive size and seemingly leisurely lifestyle, might not strike us as the pinnacle of evolutionary innovation. Yet, they carry within them a biochemical marvel that scientists are only beginning to understand fully.
In wrapping up this exploration into the hippo’s sunscreen, it’s clear that nature often holds the most sophisticated solutions to life’s challenges. The hippo’s ability to produce its sunscreen is a testament to the ingenuity of evolutionary adaptations, providing protection against the sun, bacterial and fungal infections, and helping regulate body temperature.
This unique adaptation not only highlights the importance of sun protection across the animal kingdom but also opens doors for scientific research. The potential applications of mimicking or harnessing the properties of the hippo’s “blood sweat” could revolutionize how we approach sunscreen and skin protection in the future.
In essence, the hippopotamus, with its hefty frame and aquatic lifestyle, is a walking, basking example of nature’s ability to find creative solutions for survival. So, the next time you reach for your bottle of sunscreen, spare a thought for the hippos, who have been basking under the African sun with their own built-in UV protection for millennia.
Colombia will try to control its population of more than 100 hippopotamuses, descendants of animals illegally brought to the country by late drug kingpin Pablo Escobar in the 1980s, through surgical sterilization, the transfer of hippos to other countries and possibly euthanasia, the government said Thursday.
The drug baron brought a small number of the African beasts to Colombia in the late 1980s. But after his death in 1993, the so-called “cocaine hippos” were left to roam freely and environmental authorities have been helpless to curb their numbers.
The hippos, which spread from Escobar’s estate into nearby rivers where they flourished, have no natural predators in Colombia and have been declared an invasive species that could upset the ecosystem.
Authorities estimate there are 169 hippos in Colombia, especially in the Magdalena River basin, and that if no measures are taken, there could be 1,000 by 2035.
Hippos — descendants from a small herd introduced by drug kingpin Pablo Escobar — are seen in the wild in a lake near the Hacienda Napoles theme park, once the private zoo of Escobar, in Doradal, Antioquia Department, Colombia, on April 19, 2023.
RAUL ARBOLEDA/AFP via Getty Images
Environment Minister Susana Muhamad said the first stage of the plan will be the surgical sterilization of 40 hippos per year and this will begin next week.
The procedure is expensive — each sterilization costs about $9,800 — and entails risks for the hippopotamus, including allergic reactions to anesthesia or death, as well as risks to the animal health personnel, according to the ministry. The hippos are dispersed over a large area, and are territorial and often aggressive.
Experts say sterilization alone is not enough to control the growth of the invasive species, which is why the government is arranging for the possible transfer of hippos to other countries, a plan that was announced in March. But the cost of deporting the hippos is also expensive — an estimated $3.5 million.
Muhamad said Colombian officials have contacted authorities in Mexico, India and the Philippines, and are evaluating sending 60 hippos to India.
“We are working on the protocol for the export of the animals,” she said. “We are not going to export a single animal if there is no authorization from the environmental authority of the other country.”
As a last resort to control the population, the ministry is creating a protocol for euthanasia.
A group of hippos was brought in the 1980s to Hacienda Nápoles, Escobar’s private zoo that became a tourist attraction after his death in 1993. Most of the animals live freely in rivers and reproduce without control.
Residents of nearby Puerto Triunfo have become used to hippos sometimes roaming freely about the town.
Scientists warn that the hippos’ feces change the composition of rivers and could impact the habitat of local manatees and capybaras.
Independent journalist Audrey Huse, who has lived in Colombia for eight years, told CBS News that because the hippos roam freely, they end up killing fish and threatening endemic species like manatees, otters and turtles.
“Because they have no natural predators here, as they would in Africa, the population is booming an it’s affecting the local ecosystem,” Huse said. “Because they are such large animals, they consume considerable amounts of grassland and produce significant waste, which then poisons the rivers.”
Hippos also pose danger to humans
While most of the focus has been on the impact on the ecosystem, the animals have also interacted with humans.
Recently, one of the hippos burst into a schoolyard in Doradal with both pupils and parents present. “The mothers get scared when they see an animal of that size,” teacher Dunia Arango told AFP.
“There are about 35 children playing that could approach them and provoke a tragedy,” said David Echeverri, an official from the local environment authority.
“While they may look very calm, at any moment, given their highly unpredictable behavior, they can attack, as has happened before.”
John Aristides, 33, remembers very well that afternoon in October 2021 when he was fishing on the banks of a creek when a hippopotamus “lunged at me and hit me on the head with its lips.”
He slipped trying to get away and was bitten on the arm.
“It grabbed me and threw me two meters,” he added. “It didn’t tear off my arm because they have very wide teeth.”
But Aristides still spent a month in hospital recovering.
That is the closest Colombia has come to a fatal encounter but “if we don’t do anything, then we expect to have thousands of hippopotami wandering around” in the future, said Echeverri, who earlier this year buried a hippo that had been hit by a driver. The animals can be deadly, killing an estimated 500 people every year in Africa.
