AFP | January 12, 2005

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



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



"After
it was swept 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 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.






Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.



This
is a real story that shows me that our differences don't matter much
when we need the comfort of another. We could all learn a
lesson from these two creatures, look beyond the differences and find a
way to walk the path together.

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