Outrageous moment tourist tosses a plastic cup into hippo's mouth

A tourist visiting Nanchang Zoo in China was caught on film disobeying the zoo’s rules. The unidentified man was recorded feeding an animal popcorn.

What was worse about his behavior was that he fed the animal a plastic item as well. Officials have been alerted and are investigating the case.

On Wednesday, an internet user named 'tu dou chao rou a' filmed a tourist throwing a plastic bag filled with popcorn right into the mouth of a hippo at the Nanchang Zoo. The footage shows the unidentified man laughing as the animal swallowed everything.

The man had disobeyed the zoo's rules and climbed onto the fence of the hippo enclosure. The clip was uploaded on China’s social media platform Weibo.

For more on this story go to our Twitter account @amomama_usa. The person who uploaded the footage called the incident “heart-breaking” and felt the man's behavior was “abominable.”

The internet user was believed to have been at the scene. They said the tourist threw popcorn, the popcorn's paper container, and a plastic bag used to carry the snack into the hippo's throat.

The user shared that the man had brought along his child to the zoo. After being alerted to the incident by the user, Nanchang Zoo reported the man to the police.

The zoo has 3 hippos namely: a male named 'A Ya,' 14, a female 'Jing Jing,' 9, and another male 'Hua Hua,' 1. It hasn’t been revealed which one of the three was involved in the incident but it was said to be fine.

On Thursday, in an online statement, the zoo said the man had “uncivilised' behaviour.” It’s said that he ignored nearly 1,000 signboards around the zoo, which warn tourists not to feed the animals or to climb onto the fences.

Fourteen of those signs were placed at the hippo enclosure. According to UNESCO, each year, plastic debris causes the deaths of more than a million seabirds and more than 100,000 marine mammals.

At a watering hole in the Kruger National Park, a safari guide named Arun Rao filmed a hippo saving an impala calf that had fallen in. The calf was running away from a wild dog.

As soon as the impala got out, the dog gave chase; caught and ate the calf.