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A Baby hippopotamus, swept into the Indian Ocean
by
the Tsunami, is finally coming out of his shell
thanks to the love of a 120-year-old tortoise
Owen, a 300kg, one-year-old hippo, was swept
down
the Sabaki River, into the ocean and then back
to shore when the giant waves struck the Kenyan
coast. The dehydrated
hippo was found by wildlife
rangers and taken to the Haller Park animal facility in
the port city of Mombasa.
Pining for his lost mother, Owen quickly befriended
a
giant male Aldabran tortoise named Mzee-Swahili for
"old man".
"When we released Owen into the enclosure, he
lumbered
to the tortoise which has a dark grey colour
similar to grown up hippos, Sabine Baer,
rehabilitation and ecosystems
manager at the park,
told Reuters on Thursday. Haller Park ecologist
Paula Kahumbu said the pair were now inseparable.
After
it was swept and lost its mother, the hippo was
traumatised. 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 was left at a very tender age. Hippos
are
social animals that like to stay with their mothers for
four years." She said the hippo's chances of survival
in another herd were very slim, predicting that a
dominant
male would have killed him.
Officials are hopeful Owen will befriend a female
hippo
called Cleo, also a resident at the park.
As of December 2005, a year after their initial
meeting,
Owen and Mzee are still together.
Conservation workers are planning sometime in 2006
to introduce Owen to Cleo, a 13
year old female who
has gone without the companionship of her own
species for over ten years.
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