Compiled by RAHIMY RAHIM, C.ARUNO and R. ARAVINTHAN
A MASTER’S degree graduate in Wuhan, China, ended up taking a job requiring him to clean up nearly 500kg of hippopotamus faeces daily, China Press reported.
Twenty-eight-year-old Hu Yulei was given responsibility for caring for two 40-year-old hippopotamuses at the Wuhan Zoo, including feeding them, cleaning their enclosure and monitoring their health.
Hu, who holds a master’s degree in reproduction and an undergraduate degree in genetics and breeding, begins work at 8am by hosing down the hippopotamus enclosure using a high-pressure water pump.
The process takes around two hours each day.
A fan of the CCTV documentary series Animal World, Hu had assumed working at a zoo meant being close to cute animals.
It was only after taking on the job that he discovered it required him to clean up half a tonne of hippopotamus faeces every day.
According to him, each hippopotamus produces up to 250kg of faeces a day.
Owing to this, Hu said the odour of the animals’ faeces lingered on his body, requiring him to take multiple showers a day.
Asked if he felt overqualified for the job, Hu said no, adding that his knowledge allowed him to assess the animals’ health simply by examining their faeces.
Even though the job involved largely physical labour, Hu said he felt grounded by taking it on, as it allowed him to interact with animals daily.
(The above articles are compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a >, it denotes a separate news item.)
