Flooding in Zoo- Hippopotamus released

You may expect to see birds, bees and even the odd fox in your garden.

However, the gigantic bulk of a two-tonne wallowing hippopotamus would probably come as something of a shock.

Fortunately, residents in Plavnica, in Montenegro are used to Nikica, who regularly goes AWOL from his pen at the town's zoo. 

Nikica the hippo has escaped its pen before during a flood

Nikica is the only hippopotamus in Montenegro

'He sometimes escapes his habitat when the water levels rise and this is not unusual,' zoo co-owner Nikola Pejovic said in January when the beast made a similar getaway from a private zoo in Plavnica.

Nikica, 12, was photographed swimming by houses four kilometres away from his own home.

The flooding situation in Montenegro was fairly serious over the weekend in the Lake Skadar region, at the border with Albania, where the zoo is located. 

More than 1,000 soldiers were called to help the locals with the rising water. But the soldiers have nothing to worry about with the friendly hippo.

'Locals are completely used to him,' Pejovic said of Nikica, who is described as 'extremely tame and peaceful'.

'He would not be able to return to his flooded pen as long as the waters in the lake are so high,' he said during the January flooding.

Nikica, Montenegro's only hippo, has been living in the zoo for a decade.

The 12-year-old, 2-ton hippopotamus is an unofficial local mascot

The 12-year old has been living in the local zoo for ten years