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| Fashinating story about a baby hippo and male century-old tortosie. |
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... |
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