Trapped hippos and crocs to be shot by game hunters

Hippos need to spend up to 16 hours a day in water to survive, but in parts of Namibia their ponds are drying up
Hippos need to spend up to 16 hours a day in water to survive, but in parts of Namibia their ponds are drying up
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Trophy hunters may be allowed to shoot hundreds of hippos and crocodiles trapped as mud ponds in northern Namibia dry up.

Pohamba Penomwenyo Shifeta, the environment minister, said that the government could not afford to drill boreholes to supply river systems or conservation programmes to save the hippos.

The ministry could declare the animals “problematic” and put them up for trophy hunting, Mr Shifeta told The Namibian.

Chunga Chunga, of Bamunu Conservancy where the hippos and crocodiles are trapped, said: “The conservancy has already recorded up to 10 dead hippos, and now there are fears that the whole population of both crocodiles and hippos would either relocate to neighbouring Botswana or would all die. ” Mr Chunga said.

He said that Lake Liambezi and