“Here we go… its blue!”
It’s a boy!
A crowd of zoo visitor cheered as pygmy hippo Jahari, father of the calf born last week, revealed its gender by breaking open a watermelon filled with blue Jello and blueberries.
“Everybody's super excited that it was a boy. Yeah, I expect the excitement level would've been there for a girl too. I think everybody's just excited to have the hippo baby in Grand Rapids.”
Tim Sampson is the zoo curator.
With only 2500 pygmy hippos left in the wild and only around 100 in the species survival program, every calf is critical, but gender does play an important role in conservation.
Sampson says a higher female to male ratio is preferred as one male can breed with several females.
“Right now the female population still heavily outnumbers the male population so having a male at this time is perfectly fine for the population generally. We needed a few more males at this time so we were happy we could provide one.”
The calf and its mother, Penelope, will remain out of public view for a few more weeks, learning to bond and nurse but they can be seen by visiting the webcam on the John Ball Zoo website.
Staff is planning another reveal soon: how the public can help give the newborn little male his name.
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