Circus Hippo Goes Walkabout
Passers-by were astonished yesterday morning to find a hippopotamus enjoying a meal of fresh grass on a roundabout in the streets of As Brañas, in La Coruña.
The happy hippo had taken advantage of a lapse in security by its keeper and escaped from its enclosure at the travelling Circus Roma Dola, which was performing in the town.
However, the hippo, which in the wild spends most of its time in water, didn’t go far, crossing the road until it found a nice roundabout of freshly-watered grass on which to feast.
And there it stayed, happily grazing away and seemingly oblivious to the traffic and dozens of people who had gathered to gape at the strange scene.
Then, following a few frantic phone calls, two circus workers, armed with metallic prods attempted to coax the three-ton animal back into its cage, but to no avail.
It wasn’t until the animal’s trainer turned up, after the huge beast had spent a full 20 minutes eating his fill, that hippo decided he had had enough and quietly followed his trainer back to the circus.