If you thought baboons and elephant seals wandering around Cape Town were a problem, spare a thought for the vets and staff of the City of Cape Town’s Biodiversity Management branch, which this week found a new home for a four-year-old hippopotamus who was growing too big for the False Bay Nature Reserve.
Although extinct in the wild here for centuries, Cape Town has been home to a pod of hippos since 1981, when they were introduced to control invasive vegetation. Since then, the pod has thrived, but as young males reach sexual maturity, they will – in the wild at least – go off in search for females and new pods. That’s tricky when a major city surrounds your small patch of watery paradise and you want to go looking for love.
What often happens – as it did most recently in 2024 – is that young male hippos find themselves wandering the streets of surrounding suburbs. And while the lawns of Grassy Park make for good grazing, the neighbours aren’t too happy about it.
That’s when the experts at Biodiversity Management step in, as they did this week with a 17-hour operation to proactively relocate a hippo bull from False Bay Nature Reserve to the Plettenberg Bay Game Reserve. All that was needed was a boma, a crane, a flatbed truck, expert wildlife veterinarians, and a great deal of patience.
“Hippos are very sensitive animals, and notoriously difficult to capture and transport because of their size, strength, potentially dangerous nature and sensitivity to stress,” said the City’s Deputy Mayor and Mayoral Committee Member for Spatial Planning and Environment, Alderman Eddie Andrews. “These types of operations are fraught with risks such as capture stress and overheating, cold stress during winter, injury, and logistical challenges. Of course, the staff involved are also at risk, and this is where experience and professionalism count the most.”
The hippo’s highway adventure began on Tuesday (22 July 2025), when he was captured late in the afternoon using a specially designed boma, and placed in a transport crate. Travelling overnight to keep him cool, he arrived at his new home – Plettenberg Bay Game Reserve – just after 8:30am the following morning. Since then, he’s been chilling out in a dam, before getting to know his new ‘hood.
“The Plettenberg Bay Game Reserve provides a suitable and secure habitat for hippos with adequate space, water resources, and an existing hippo population where he can fit in,” said Alderman Andrews.
While Cape Town may be short one hippo, there’s still a healthy pod living their best life in the Rondevlei Nature Reserve. Climb the observation towers and you might just spot them!
Cape Town is wild! Read about the roaming baboon and Gordy the elephant seal.