By: Momodou Justice Darboe
The long-standing conflict between farmers and hippopotamuses in the Gambia’s Central River Region (CRR) has rekindled in recent times as hippos ravaged rice fields and caused pre-harvest losses to rice growers, this medium gathered from multiple sources.
The relations between CRR’s rice growers and the region’s hippos were never smooth but conservation laws and efforts have, for many years, largely protected the hippo population in the area from angry farmers.
The Gambian leader Adama Barrow was late last year severely rebuked and criticized for receiving at his Mankamang Kundaresidence a poached hippo gifted to him by a famous hunter.
Currently, there are no available statistics about the number of hippos in the CRR but farmers said the trail of destruction they left behind in recent times was concerning.
Many rice growers told this medium that they would like the hippos reigned in to allow them to optimize the fruit of their labour.
“They are devouring our rice fields. Hippos are becoming an existential threat here, threatening household income stability and food security,” farmer Demba Ceesay told this medium.
“If they continue with their plunderous attitude towards our crops, we may be compelled to take the law into our own hands because they are undermining our food security,” a rice grower,who wished to remain anonymous for fear of a backlash for issuing threats against a protected animal specie, told this reporter on Saturday.
The farmers, who spoke to The Voice, were unanimous in their voices of appeal to the relevant authorities to help in efforts to minimize hippo attacks on rice fields.