Hippo Befriends Tortoise

A baby hippopotamus that survived the tsunami waves on the Kenyan coast has formed a strong bond with a giant male, hundred year old tortoise, in an animal facility in the port city of Mombasa, officials said.

The baby 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 mother " ecologist Paula Kahumbu, who is in charge of Lafarge Park, told AFP.

After it was swept away and lost its mother, the hippo, not surprisingly, was heavily traumatized. It had to look around for something to be its surrogate mother. Fortunately, it came across 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.

A very endearing story indeed, in a world full of war, death and misery its nice to be able to post something like this up on the web.

All credits will be given to the originator of this topic when they contact me as I lost all the info in HDD crash.