A female hippopotamus named Nikica swam out of her enclosure at a private zoo in Plavnica, Montenegro when flood waters rose over the fence. The two-ton hippo has stayed close to the zoo, but cannot be rounded up until the flood recedes.
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(image credit: Savo Prelevic/AFP/Getty Images)
A spokesman for Montenegro's natural disasters commission, which responds to floods, said the law required animals that can endanger human lives to be killed. But state veterinary authorities said they were not entitled to kill animals.
Zoo owner Dragan Pejovic insisted Nikica is not dangerous, "unless someone attacks and kicks her."
He said that her movements were being tracked by the zoo's private security and that she was "tame and peaceful".
Pejovic added that Nikica now had nowhere to return because the zoo, on a small island in a lake south of the capital, remains flooded. She was being fed with loaves of bread and bales of hay at a swimming pool of a restaurant owned by Pejovic and his brother.
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(image credit: Savo Prelevic/AFP/Getty Images)