They overgraze grass fields and their big feet trample the wet ground around lakes and rivers causing erosion. To help maintain hippo habitats, countries such as Uganda have organized hippo management culling programs. These programs monitor and maintain hippo and other herbivore populations to preserve the land. Great Hosts Hippos are hosts to many creatures. Birds, such as hammerhead storks and cattle egrets, use hippos as perches for fishing while hippos are standing in water.
Birds pick flies, ticks and other insects off the skin of hippos.
These birds are doing the hippos a favor by ridding them of pesky bugs. Another creature which hippos play host to is the Oculotrema hippopotami, a parasitic fluke, found on 90 percent of all hippos' eyes. In the water, certain fish species eat algae and other deposits off the hippos' skin. Woodland Park Zoo has two female hippopotamuses which can be viewed in the African Savanna, usually sleeping in their pool. The hippo pool is cleaned twice a week and the animals love to play in it while the water is filling up.