A male hippo was born at Copenhagen Zoo last week on Thursday, the zoo announced in a press release on Monday.
The zookeeper Linda Hiort Wernberg told DR Nyheder that the young one would be kept in a separate enclosure with its mother for the first two weeks before the zookeepers begin to gradually let it into the main hippo enclosure. “This is big for us. It’s almost two years since our last hippo was born,” she said.
Already a handful
Carsten Grøndahl, the chief vet at the zoo, told DR that the newborn was ready to challenge to handle. “It doesn’t weigh more than 30 kilos, but it’s very strong and really slippery, so it takes two to hold it,” he said.
The mother is 27 years old and came from Emmen Zoo to Copenhagen when the new hippo enclosure was opened in 2007. The newborn hippo is her third offspring. The father came to the zoo in 2013 and has no previous offspring.
Visitors to the zoo can expect to see the new arrival when he is released into the main enclosure in about two weeks.
