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Zoo's Hippo Must Hit the Road
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He also needs his own room, so to speak. Male hippos are extremely territorial, and will attack other hippos, or people, that intrude in their space. "Happy doesn't want friends," Smith said, and "hippo space is expensive."
All of this dismays JT, a tall man with long strides and two earrings, who says he had hoped to retire as "the hippo man."
"You get attached to these animals," he said.
JT, who declined to give his age, has been taking care of Happy since 1995.
The keeper was working as a parking and ticket manager with Friends of the National Zoo, which runs the parking lots and food courts, and volunteered to work for a month with the elephants and rhinos, he said. From there he landed a six-month gig in the elephant house, and that became full-time.
Like Happy, JT is local. He grew up and still lives in a neighborhood near the zoo. As a kid he would roam the zoo grounds, never dreaming that one day he would work there caring for one of the world's largest animals.
Although JT also cares for the zoo's pygmy hippos, capybaras, peccaries and Przewalski's horses, Happy is his favorite.
Hippo stats pour out of him: how fast they run on land (25 mph); how fast they run in the water (10 mph); how much they eat (55 pounds of hay, grain and produce a day); how long they live (about 45 years in the wild, longer in captivity); how much time they spend in the water (18 to 22 hours per day); how their brains are smaller than a giraffe's; and how, if they're mad, they can "break you in half like a pencil."
Generally, they get mad at trespassers entering their territory, attacking out of pure irritation, not for food. Hippos are vegetarians.
Their sweat is tinted red, and works as a sunscreen and a disinfectant. They have nasty-looking canine and incisor teeth up front and two long rows or molars in the back. They have stubbly whiskers, tongues the size of shovels and remarkably delicate-looking feet.
Happy is the 18th of 19 offspring of the late Arusha, who died four years ago. He is essentially a "big baby," JT said. He gets two meals a day. He has ceiling fans, skylights, spray showers, an exotic mural on his walls, as well as the two pools. "This is all he knows," the keeper said.
Zoo officials said they will strive to make Happy's transition as smooth as possible, to the best new home they can find for him.
