Yes the problems are manifold here. It is heartbreaking to see a once prosperous country being sold down the line in the name of greed, power and anger. The guys that run our country have used the masses (the people) as pawns, while they all get rich. The people given land will be starving at the end of this year as there is no infrastructure and the economy is at its lowest ever.In the meantime, this wildlife conservancy is being used as a plaything for big wigs to send their so-called war vets to so-called claim the land, when in reality their goal is to poach as many animals as possible to sell the meat for their bosses and make themselves and their bosses rich.
It breaks my heart and I can only pray that things will change and sanity will return. In the meantime, one looks after one's own garden- in our case the hippos and immediate area around us. We walk daily, checking for snares and, at this moment, panicking about the hippos' habitat.
The flooding last year, due to the cyclone that hit Mozambique, caused extensive damage to the Turgwe river (3 out of 4 weirs broken). Now there is so much sand in the river due to erosion that the river, in the majority of its course, is but two to four inches deep, with a thick layer of sand underneath.
Bob and 18 hippos are in the last weir pool by our home, with the water daily shrinking in size due to the amount of sand coming down. One other pool with 3 of the Turgwe hippos is a natural pool 14kms downstream and this, so far, is okay as it's on a bend and not too badly silted up.
I am desperately seeking sponsors to help with donations to hire an excavator and a suction pump- one for carting sand out of the river and two for sucking sand out. Even if we get more rain (have had bad rains so far) this work must be carried out. Plus, I want to fix at least one weir that was broken to give the hippos another backup pool for the dry season. Both their pans that we built in the drought and after are fine as we built them out of the Turgwe. The hippos, however, won't move into them. They'd only do so if there was no river at all, i.e. a drought situation. We have a river, and have had through the whole dry season, but its just so full of sand.
So, the hippos naturally would stay in that area, but they soon won't have a deep enough pool for all 19 to live in. All the hassles in our country tend to take second place to the problems faced now for the hippos.
Karen Paolillo, 2001