Fiona, a 5-month-old hippo born premature at the Cincinnati Zoo, is the animal kingdom’s newest celebrity.
“People have Fionamania.”
She’s also stubborn.
Credit: Cincinnati Zoo
She likes her enrichment toys, especially likes her pool noodle.
So she’s smart.
Probably a genius, if you ask me.
She’s not a person.
But we report what we see, and we get a lot of help from her animal care team.
We make a run at add some educational information about hippos.
Was that something you’re trying to convey?Yes!
You picked up on it, and that is accurate.
Some of her caregivers call her diva.
You absolutely picked up on that.
And we also sing to her!
With tweets like “Double chins are a good thing when you’re a hippo!”
We’re embracing the neck rolls.
We’re happy when she steps on the scale and gains three more pounds.
It’s a whole different way to look at things people are usually embracing the skinny.
What would you say to those people?Just that she’s not.
We just wanted to share her story with the world.
When she was premature, we weren’t sure if she was going to make it or not.
We could have waited to see what happens and kept everything quiet.
We could have not shown her at all.
But we decided we would let people root for her along with us, and they did.
We had no idea that it would go crazy like this.
If we had tried to plan it this way, I don’t think we could have.
