January 11, 2005 - Tsunami Brings Baby Hippo and Century-Old Turtle Together.
650-pound baby hippopotamus called Owen rests next to his adopted "mother,"a century-old male tortoise in Nairobi, Kenya. Image © 2005 by AFP News.
Nairobi, Kenya, Director of LaFarge Park, Paula Kahumbu, told AFP News, "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.'" Owen was swept down Sabaki River into the Indian Ocean, then forced back to shore when tsunami waves struck the Kenyan coast on December 26, 2004. Wildlife rangers rescued him.
Ecologist Kahumbu explained, "After (baby hippo) was swept away 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 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. 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."
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