A total of 33 hippos have been born and bred in the zoo
A total of 33 hippos have been born and bred in the zoo
A pair of breeding hippos were captured enjoying a carefree time with their cub in Ostrava Zoo, Czech Republic. The video shows the happy hippo couple in their natural habitat relishing the amenities at the zoo.
The breeding of hippos in the Ostrava Zoo, in the Czech Republic, began in 1967 with the import of a six-year-old female who lived in Ostrava until her death in 2009. The second hippo was a male brought in 1967, who lived in the zoo for 50 years and died at the end of 2018.
The third hippopotamus brought to Ostrava in 2016 was a young female from the English Whipsnade Zoo.
“So far, the last hippopotamus brought to the Ostrava Zoo was a male from the Antwerp Zoo, which was imported in October 2019 and formed a couple with a young female. The video captures a breeding pair of hippos with a cub,” said one of the representatives of the zoo.
A total of 33 hippos have been born in the zoo till date, of which 19 have been bred. This made the Ostrava Zoo the most successful breeder in the Czech Republic. Water is an environment in which hippos spend up to 18 hours a day.
The mating also occurs in water. Females give birth and even nurse their cubs in the water. Hippos are known to spend almost 80% of their time in the water and are found to be territorial only in water
A number of anatomical and physiological features make it easier for hippos to stay in the water, such as closable nose openings on the upper part of the head, small eyes and movable earlobes with the ability to close the ear openings.
Hippo calves usually weigh 45 kgs at the time of birth and a female hippo can only give birth to one calf in two years.
Research states that despite their heavyweight body, the hippos can easily outrun humans and is known to clock 30 km/hr for short distances. They roam on the fields for hours in search of food and are known to have a maximum of 68 kgs of grass while grazing in one go.
Hippos are one of the most aggressive creatures in the world and are considered to be one of the most dangerous animals in Africa responsible for human deaths in the region.
The International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has classified the Hippo as a vulnerable species in 2008 after accessing the population decline of the species throughout the world. The population is on a steady decline with the highest drop observed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo owing to illegal poaching.
(Edited by Praveen Pramod Tewari and Vaibhav Vishwanath Pawar)
