A hippo at the Taman Safari conservation park/zoo in Bogor almost choked to death, the park said, after it tried to swallow a plastic cup that was tossed right into its mouth by a visitor.
The incident first blew up on social media thanks to a series of stories on Instagram by user @cyntiactcete. According to her, as she was driving through the hippo enclosure in Taman Safari on Sunday, someone in the car ahead of hers waved their hand out of the car window to entice a nearby hippo with food. When the hippo opened its mouth wide, the person then chucked a plastic cup and a couple of tissue papers into it.
@cyntiactcete said she did not manage to film the tossing of the litter into the hippo’s mouth, but one of her videos showed clearly the plastic cup wedged in the throat of the hippo. In a follow-up post, @cyntiactcete said she reported the incident to park officials, who later told her that the hippo puked out the plastic cup.
Taman Safari officials confirmed to the media that the hippo, a female, is in good health.
“Right now the animal is fine because she vomited the litter. Had she swallowed it, the plastic cup could’ve killed the animal because plastic cups take hundreds of years to degrade,” Taman Safari Bogor spokesman Yulius H Suprihardo told Kompas.
Nevertheless, Yulius said the hippo will be under continued medical surveillance for some time, but reassured that her appetite has been normal since the incident.
Yulius added that the hippo may have learned to open its mouth at passing cars as visitors often fed hippos in the enclosure, even though the action is prohibited due to possible harm to visitors and animals.
Animal activist Doni Herdaru of Animal Defenders Indonesia managed to track down the alleged culprit, a middle-aged woman, who recorded an apology video that was posted on Doni’s Instagram today.
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“I am going to Taman Safari to apologize for what I did, and I promise not to do it again,” the masked woman said in the video.
In the caption of the post, Doni wrote that Taman Safari has filed a complaint against the woman to the police. The police have yet to announce an investigation into the incident, but no one is holding their breath for just punishment against the alleged culprit due to Indonesia’s weak enforcement of its animal protection law.
Editor’s note: This story was updated to include the identification of the alleged culprit by Animal Defenders Indonesia.
