The Future for Hippos and Humans
In South Africa there are many different herbivores. With one megaherbivore, in particular, the hippopotamus it is quite interesting to see the impacts of human and natural disturbances on their populations. While in Kruger National Park, we sometimes spotted hippo herds in the major rivers or in waterholes throughout the park. This hippo above was photographed grazing near the river’s edge. During my visit to the park, I pondered the question “how will human disturbances affect the hippopotamus populations?” In an article written by Rebecca Lewison, she ponders what could happen to hippo populations in the future due to natural and human medicated disturbances. In her paper she discusses how she includes certain variables when discussing population probabilities models and how these variables affect the population. What she used for human medicated, consisted of habitat loss and unregulated hunting, and for natural disturbance, this was the rainfall fluctuation. Her study showed that over the next 60 years there will be a decline in locally abundant populations in response to the combination of environmental fluctuations and human medicated treatments ( Lewison, 2016). In many places to count the populations of hippos, scientists use boats or planes to count due to the hippos aggressive nature. In a study conducted by Inman et al., they used a drone to help count the population of hippos in the Okavango Delta in Botswana. This is a new practice, using drones to count population sizes because the technology is so new But for this project, they flew the drone with a specialized camera on the bottom that could record continuous video streamed to a smartphone (Inman et al. 2019). The results of this study showed that, when flown at the right time of day, reasonable estimates of hippo numbers and demographics were achievable or better than land counts. This type of data collection is beneficial to something like hippo population surveys because of the danger hippos pose to humans. With the help of drone surveying, the population for hippos could be closely monitored and the information could then be used to fuel more research on the impacts of human disturbances on the remains populations of hippos over time. Because hippos also spend quite a bit of time underwater, the use of the continuous video allowed researchers to count the hippos that cam up to surface momentarily which would have been missed on the images. Drones also help with hippo population surveys because they can get to difficult to access areas allowing for more accurate population sizes. In conclusion, hippos populations should be closely monitored in the upcoming years, because natural and man made disturbance pose a huge threat to hippo populations. Hopefully, with the ever-evolving technology, we will be able to monitor hippo populations more often allowing for more up to date population sizes.
Work Cited
Inman, V. L., Kingsford, R. T., Chase, M. J., & Leggett, K. E. (2019). Drone-based effective counting and ageing of hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius) in the Okavango Delta in Botswana. BioRxiv, 689059.
Lewison, R. (2007). Population responses to natural and human‐mediated disturbances: assessing the vulnerability of the common hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius). African Journal of Ecology, 45(3), 407–415.
