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01-14-2005, 01:16 PM | #1 |
Radical Centrist
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Cottage of Prussia
Posts: 31,423
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1/14/2005: Tortoise adopts hippo
NAIROBI (AFP) - 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 Mombasa, 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 tsumani 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 traumatised. 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. |
01-14-2005, 01:41 PM | #2 |
changed his status to single
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Right behind you. No, the other side.
Posts: 10,308
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this is really cool. i'd like to be able to keep track of this situation over the next few years. i wonder if there will come a time when the hippo is actually a danger to the tortoise, though? (just thinking of the elephant who broke it's young one's leg last year or the year before.)
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Getting knocked down is no sin, it's not getting back up that's the sin |
01-14-2005, 01:52 PM | #3 |
-◊|≡·∙■·∙≡|◊-
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Parts unknown.
Posts: 4,081
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I don't think that's an adoption.
I think that's like Anna Nicole Smith and that old dude
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01-14-2005, 02:03 PM | #4 | |
twatfaced two legged bumhole
Join Date: Jun 2004
Posts: 3,143
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Quote:
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Strength does not come from how much weight you can lift, or how many miles you can run. It comes from knowing that you set a goal, and rose to the challenge. Strength comes from within. |
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01-14-2005, 03:30 PM | #6 |
dar512 is now Pete Zicato
Join Date: May 2003
Location: Chicago suburb
Posts: 4,968
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Depends on whether he had any money invested. That compound interest really adds up after a hundred years.
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01-14-2005, 03:37 PM | #7 |
Blatantly Homosapien
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 6,200
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Don't you just love Cellar Fridays?
This is way cool! Nature is amazingly wonderful at times to be so menacing at other times.Kinda hard to "figger" some times. PROBLEMS WITH TRYING TO MAINTAIN A RELATIONSHIP WITH A TORTOISE: They live very sheltered lives. They have a tendency to withdraw from others. Generally, they are "a little slow". Odds are you will expire before they do. They still demand sex even in their nineties.
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Please type slowly. I can't read very fast............... and no holy water, please. Last edited by capnhowdy; 01-14-2005 at 03:40 PM. Reason: sp |
01-14-2005, 04:01 PM | #8 |
Wingnahningning... Er somethin'
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: 90802
Posts: 368
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Too bad their both boys. They could have had a baby. A hippopotortoise. No? K, sorry, it's Friday and I'm bored.
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01-14-2005, 04:48 PM | #9 |
Wang Dude
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: South Carolina
Posts: 177
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tortoise adoption?
Looks like this tortoise Has adopted a Mini-van. THe Turtle is Heathcliffe and uses Maybel, the van, for shade. Unfortunatly Maybel has been haveing bladder trouble which requires Heatcliffe to have oil scrubbed from his shell. But it is so hard to keep them apart.<sigh>
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01-14-2005, 05:20 PM | #10 | |
The future is unwritten
Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 71,105
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Quote:
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The descent of man ~ Nixon, Friedman, Reagan, Trump. |
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01-28-2005, 11:35 AM | #11 |
Kinda New Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
Posts: 1
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Seems like "The Tsuami" is getting the blame/credit for all kinds of things these days, turning the internet into a giant wave of mis-information! The original (true) story appeared on this link:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/africa...ya.hippo.reut/ |
01-28-2005, 11:41 PM | #12 | |
The future is unwritten
Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 71,105
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Quote:
Welcome to the Cellar princess, thanks for the link.
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The descent of man ~ Nixon, Friedman, Reagan, Trump. |
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