Lazing submerged in the river, the hippopotamus may seem a docile creature, but to many rural communities in Burkina Faso it has become a menace - so much so that the government has made hippo hunting legal again. There were fewer than 100 hippos in Burkina Faso just two decades ago and the large pachyderm appeared to be on the verge of extinction in this landlocked and semi-arid West African nation. However, a recent government survey showed numbers have rebounded to around 1,400 following the imposition of a state hunting ban in 1991.