Zoo Hippos

Hippos at the Zoo

Los Angeles Zoo, 1995

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The Care and Feeding of the Hippopotamus

Fortunately for zookeepers, hippos are hardy animals that adapt well to captivity. Unfortunately for the hippos, "captivity"--until recently--meant bare cages with concrete floors, thick iron bars, and small dirty pools. Modern zoos strive to create environments that reflect the animals' native habitats. In the case of hippos, this means open-air enclosures with spacious pools and tropical vegetation.

Hippos do have one annoying habit which makes caring for them a chore. In the wild, hippos mark their territories and grazing routes by scattering their dung with their tails. They also drop great quantities of dung in their resident lakes and rivers. While this activity is essential to the African ecology, it is a source of drudgery for the zookeepers, for it means that the hippo's pool must be drained, cleaned, and refilled every day.

As one might expect, feeding a hippopotamus is no small task. Betsy and Shorty, a pair of hippos who lived at the Prospect Park Zoo in New York City until 1989, each day shared 35 pounds of hay, 50 pounds of vegetables (carrots, beets, and cabbage), 25 pounds of dog biscuits, and 5 pounds of grain. (By the way, the two hippos pictured here are NOT Betsy and Shorty.)

Good Places to See Hippos

Sedgewick County Zoo and Botanical Garden
Witchita, Kansas
One of the first zoos to offer underwater viewing of hippos. Unfortunately, the exhibit has an inadequate filtering system, so the water is cloudy most of the time. If you are fortunate enough to get there when the tank has just been filled and the water is still clear, however, you can get a great view of the hippos.

Toledo Zoological Gardens
Toledo, Ohio

The Toledo Zoo's "Hippoquarium" is one of the best places in the country to view hippopotamuses. The exhibit, which holds 360,000 gallons of water, allows visitors to see the animals as they move about beneath the surface. The water is kept remarkably clear by a filtering system which is capable of filtering 8000 gallons of water every ninety minutes. Cupid and Bubbles, the exhibit's resident couple, are apparently comfortable in this environment, for three live hippo births have taken place in the tank in front of the viewing public. A video recording of one of these births can be seen at the exhibit.

San Diego Zoo
San Diego, California

Another excellent place to view hippos is the San Diego Zoo's "Hippo Beach" exhibit, which opened in May 1995. Similar in concept to Toledo's Hippoquarium, the attraction allows visitors to view hippos through glass walls as the animals move about underwater. The viewing window is two inches thick and 105 feet long, and an advanced filtering system keeps the water clear at all times, so one can always get a good look at Funani and Jabba, the zoo's resident hippo pair.

There are two official Hippo Beach web sites, one at Balboa Park, the other at the San Diego Zoo. For a personal account, read about my trip to Hippo Beach.

Famous Zoo Hippos

Bubbles
Bubbles the hippo caught the nation's attention in 1978 when she escaped from a wild animal park in Southern California. Bubbles disappeared into the Laguna Hills near Irvine, where she eluded capture for 19 days, despite the efforts of hundreds of searchers and volunteers. On March 10, Bubbles was finally brought down with tranquilizer darts. Tragically, she collapsed in an unnatural position and died of suffocation. An autopsy later revealed that Bubbles had been five months pregnant.
Knautschke
At the outset of World War II, there were over 2000 animals living at the Berlin Zoo in Germany. By war's end, only 91 animals remained alive. One of those survivors was a hippo named Knautschke, who was born during a bombing raid. Knautschke became the ancestor of all the hippos at the Berlin Zoo and the Leipzig Zoo.
Obaysch
Obaysch, named after his native island in the Nile River, was the first live hippopotamus seen in Europe since the time of the Roman Empire. He was brought to the London Zoo in 1850, when he was barely a year old. Obaysch immediately became a local celebrity, for England was caught up in a craze for natural history and exotic animals. For more information on Obaysch, see Nina Root's article "Victorian England's Hippomania" in the February 1993 issue of Natural History.
Peter the Great
Peter the Great, known also simply as Pete, was born at New York's Central Park Zoo on July 13, 1903, but lived most of his long life at the Bronx Zoo. He was one of that zoo's main attractions, mainly because of his amiable nature and his longevity. Pete lived to the age of forty-nine years, six months, and nineteen days, the record age for a hippopotamus in captivity.
The Hippos of Budapest
Budapest, Hungary, has long been famous for the hippos in its city zoo. The animals live in an attractive building of carved stone, and their pools are kept warm by natural hot springs. During World War II, Hungary experienced a series of unusually cold winters. Between the war and the weather, food shortages were common, and many of the zoo animals were in danger of starving to death, especially the larger animals. To keep their famous hippos alive, the people of Budapest donated their straw hats, mats, and slippers--over 9000 items in all--to be shredded and fed to the animals. For a fictionalized account of this extraordinary effort, check out the children's book Hanna's Cold Winter by Trish Marx (Minneapolis: Carolrhoda Books, 1993).

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Revised April 14, 1998
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