Saving the Turgwe Hippos - Zimbabwe

Animals, Spring, 2001 by Nicole Dreon

It is early evening in the southeast Lowveld of Zimbabwe, and the path down to the Turgwe River is steep and windy. We quietly follow our guide, Karen Paolillo, and hear the hippos' clamor before rounding a small break in the brush that reveals their pool.

"Hello, Blackface. Hello, Bob," Karen calls to her old friends. She speaks to them the whole time we are there, her familiar voice assuring them that everything is all right. Karen scouts the pool for Blackface, a large cow whose temperamental disposition warrants a watchful eye.

"Ha, ha, ha!" A reverberating grunt erupts like a powerful, frightening laugh from the hippos, a reminder of the tremendous body below the surface. "If I tell you to back off," Karen tells our group, "then you back off."

Karen's stomach churns every time she takes visitors to the river. Having been charged herself, she is well aware of how fast even an awkward-looking hippo can explode out of the water.

A disturbed hippo is rumored to be one of the most dangerous animals in Africa. It is not even bothered by crocodiles. A bull hippo can weigh up to 7,000 pounds and grow up to 5 feet tall and 14 feet long. Still, Karen won't allow anybody to carry a gun when she takes people to see "her" hippos. "They are too easy to use," she says in a slightly faded British accent. "Without one, you have to use more caution."

Now, watching these behemoths splashing and roughhousing, it is hard to believe that just a decade ago they were struggling to survive. If not for the efforts of this petite woman--who has focused her nervous energy, candid demeanor, and passion for wildlife to save the Turgwe hippos--things could have turned out very differently.

In 1991, Karen and her husband, geologist Jean-Roger Paolillo, had recently moved to Zimbabwe and were living in the Save Valley Conservancy on land owned by the Humani Ranch, a private game ranch. For Karen it was a return to a land she loves. She had first moved to Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) in 1977, landing a job as a croupier in a casino in Victoria Falls. After the casino was destroyed by mortar fire during Zimbabwe's struggle for liberation, she was transferred to Kariba. There she met several outdoorsmen, whom she eagerly accompanied into the bush to learn everything she could about wildlife. Eventually she learned enough to lead photo tours, the first female professional safari guide in Zimbabwe.

At one point Karen had the opportunity to work with George Adamson of Born Free fame on lion reintroductions. But after visiting Adamson in Kenya, she met Jean-Roger and fell in love. She wrapped up her affairs in Zimbabwe and accompanied her new husband to his work in the remote forests of Gabon. When Jean-Roger landed a job in Zimbabwe, Karen was elated to return.

One day in 1991, out of curiosity, Karen walked the banks of the Turgwe River and counted the hippos. When she finished her survey, she was alarmed to find that, of 80 hippos once inhabiting the river, only 27 remained. When the rains failed to come in December, it signaled the start of the worst drought in Lowveld history.

The Turgwe River became meek and depleted. Termite hills stood taller than usual. And it was quiet. A land once abundant with animals could no longer provide for them. Short hairs became apparent on the thick skins of the hippos, and they suffered acute diarrhea--both signs of malnutrition and dehydration.

Karen realized that without human intervention these animals would perish. She was determined that the 15 hippos that resided on the banks in front of her home would survive. They needed food and a watering hole. But people and livestock were not eating, so the hippos were overlooked.

Karen first went to Roger Whittall, one of the owners of Humani Ranch. He agreed to give her access to a borehole, bulldozers, and a portion of his work force. Clem Coetzee, a game catcher, had an idea of what the herbivorous hippos might eat, and Karen studied the animals' dung to see what else was essential to their diet.

This was all she had to go on as she began to feed the two small schools of hippos by hand. At dusk, Karen would lay out soya bean hay and horse cube concentrate. The hippos ate 100 pounds of hay and 9 pounds of the concentrate apiece. At times food had to be brought from as far as Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, six hours away. Karen, who was funding the project, knew that her money, like the river, would soon disappear.

Then the river flow shrank to a trickle, forcing both families of hippos to share the same watering hole. The two dominant males quickly had territorial conflicts. Bob killed Happy's son, stole Happy's females, and then chased him out of the group. The situation grew more and more desperate.

Karen began to write to magazines and companies, asking for help. A response came from Care for the Wild International, a British wildlife charity, which quickly raised enough money to help fund a dam. Within six and a half weeks, a cement-and-masonry pan, along with a pipeline connecting to a well nearly 10 miles away, was in place. The hippos now had a pool 49 feet long, 26 feet wide, and 5 feet deep to live in. Both Bob and Happy had their own drinking troughs. Other animals, such as waterbucks, kudus, warthogs, and baboons, drank from the same troughs.