Tie Me Kangaroo Hippopotamus Down, Sport…

Over at TetZoo Blog, in the comments to a story about the amazing photos of a crocodile killed by hippos, comes this extraordinary story from Down Under.

Some pig hunters bagged a very unusual trophy – a pigmy hippo!

Nico Courtney, 27, was out spotlighting for pigs with his mate Rusty on a station in the Douglas Daly district on Saturday night.

"It was about 1am and running away from us - from the tail end it just looked like a big pig," the station worker said.

"We got out, had a look at it, and thought 'that's not a pig, it's a hippo'.

"Then we thought 'you don't get hippos in Australia'."

It seems the animal is thought to have been living wild for about five years since escaping from Tipperary Station, a former exotic wildlife sanctuary founded by millionaire Warren Anderson.

Whereas anyone else would be freaking out at this discovery, the intrepid pig hunters were somewhat phlegmatic:

Mr Courtney said he rang a few mates to tell them what happened.

"They told me to go to bed," he said. "So I thought I'd better call the boss, and he said 'no it couldn't be'."

They both decided to get some shuteye and "reassess the situation in the morning".

But it was still a hippo come daylight.

Isn’t that just quintessentially Australian?

I doubt if anyone bagging the Bodmin Big Cat or netting Nessie would be able to contain themselves from contacting the media and negotiating the film rights there and then…