Fascinating
story.
NAIROBI (AFP) - A baby
hippopotamus that survived the tsunami waves on the Kenyan
coast has formed a strong bond with a giant male century-old
tortoise, in an animal facility in the port city of Mombassa,
officials said.
The hippopotamus, nicknamed Owen and weighing about 300
kilograms (650 pounds), was swept down Sabaki River into
the Indian Ocean, then forced back to shore when tsunami
waves struck the Kenyan coast on December 26, before wildlife
rangers rescued him. "It is incredible. A-less-than-a-year-old
hippo has adopted a male tortoise, about a century old,
and the tortoise seems to be very happy with being a 'mother',"
ecologist Paula Kahumbu, who is in charge of Lafarge Park,
told AFP.
"After it was swept and lost its mother, the hippo
was traumatized. It had to look for something to be a
surrogate mother. Fortunately, it landed on the tortoise
and established a strong bond. They swim, eat and sleep
together," the ecologist added. "The hippo follows
the tortoise exactly the way it follows its mother. If
somebody approaches the tortoise, the hippo becomes aggressive,
as if protecting its biological mother," Kahumbu
added.
"The hippo is a young baby, he was left at a very
tender age and by nature, hippos are social animals that
like to stay with their mothers for four years,"
he explained... |
 |
