As to the keeping hippo carcass, I don’t know if I’d call it a “trophy” in this case. The article says that it has been put in a cold room, which is quite ba bit different than having it stuffed and put up for show. There are a lot of reasons for them to want to preserve the carcass. I imagine that they are probably going to want to study it. There’s actually a lot of information that could be gleaned from the carcass, such as what its preferred diet was in this habitat, what it’s general health is after 5 years on its own in a foreign environment, any sorts of parasites or diseases it might have been carrying, and so on. I hardly think the reason for keeping it is to use it as a trophy.

As to the hunters’ feelings concerning the kill, it surely does seem that the hunters are distressed and regretful. Just looking at the face of the guy in the picture, the expression on his face makes him seem almost ashamed, and not happy or proud of what has transpired.

I think this was an honest mistake. Humans get accidentally shot while hunting all of the time, do they not? This was a strange animal where no one would expect it, and under the right circumstances, such as in dense brush, a pygmy hippo could certainly be mistaken for a wild boar in my opinion.

There’s no reason at all that they could have possibly expected a hippo to be there. If they had idenitified it as such, they may have done things differently, but these were not researchers. They were hunters out hunting boar and came across an animal that looks like one. Surely this unfortunate ocurrence can’t be too surprising.

It’s a shame, but I’m not sure we can really blame the hunters too much in this case.

Please wait until you know just a few more facts before painting hunters in such broad uninformed strokes. Not only has another poster pointed out that they weren’t happy to shoot the animal, but I personally don’t think it takes a kill happy individual to mistake a wild pig for a pygmy hippo. And being from Oklahoma myself I can’t say that I or anyone else I know would try to get close enough to examine a hog at night to see if it might be an out of place hippo. (1: because hogs aren’t the friendliest of animals to approach. 2: Why would anybody think there might even be a small chance of there being a hippo where one doesn’t belong!?)

From the Australian Broadcasting Corporation website

ps: kind of having to do with this, are there even any circus trains that could be explanations for such creatures as bigfoot and nessie?

If there were adequate food resources in this area, and the hippo was in good health, then I suppose it is not too far fetched that it could survive on its own for five years.

I’m not too surprised. In my research concerning introduced and invasive species in foreign ecosystems, one thing I’ve learned is that people tend to sometimes underestimate how tenacious and adaptable some animals can be. In a habitat seemingly so nearly approximating the pygmy hippo’s native environment, with an opportunistic feeder like this hippo is known to be, I don’t see any reason why it should have been assumed dead after its escape.