Social media users were left in hysterics after a hippopotamus was spotted in the middle of the street in Wales and was posted online – it turns out the animal lives locally
A UK police force received a bizarre call from locals after a hippopotamus was spotted in the middle of the road.
Officers were called to the Welsh town of Rhyl after the large animal obstructed people in the middle of Water Street. But the animal was actually a toy model that had randomly been placed on the road.
Passer-by Josh Taylor said police arrived in patrol cars to remove the displaced figure. He explained that the toy originated from the Children’s village across the road. In footage online, officers could be seen approaching the hippo as a man decided to mount it.
Mr Taylor explained that although he only just posted the clip, he filmed it around a year ago. He shared it on his TikTok account @poweredbygreta and said: “Only in Rhyl would you come across a hippo in the road”.
In the clip, he joked: ‘Police arrest hippo on night out.’ The post has amassed more than 27.7k likes and has been shared more than 11,000 times. Mr Taylor said: “This was around this time last year but I’ve never posted it until now. It came from over the road at the Rhyl Children’s Village. We saw a group of lads carrying it across the road, so I started recording. The hippo had been in the road for about 20 minutes before the police turned up.”
However, North Wales Police are not the only force who receive strange call outs from concerned locals. Over in Greater Manchester, a worried member of the public dialled 999 after spotting a suspected tiger in a garden.
But when cops arrived, they realised the predator in question was actually a life-sized stuffed toy, which had been left on the lawn. Greater Manchester Police saw the funny side and shared the scenes on social media.
In a post on Facebook, the force joked that they had named the toy Tony. It read: “Yesterday evening Oldham Police earned their stripes when they were contacted by a concerned member of the public of a Tiger loose in nearby gardens that appeared to be pawing in the grass.
” Officers arrived quickly and after evaluating the situation agreed it was in fact not a real animal but a toy – Tony The Tiger! Tony the Tiger was asked for a comment about Oldham police he said ‘They’re grrrrrrrreat!’ It added: “Tony is now safely booked into property at Oldham Police station.”
In response, people laughed about the situation. One social media user wrote: “I bet everyone thought GMP couldn’t deal with this, but you showed them that you Shere Khan.” Another joked: “Was it a cereal offender?”. Someone else added: “GMP, they’re g…g…g…great.”
