"Much of life can never be explained but only witnessed."
Rachel Naomi Remen, MD
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 Mombassa, officials said.
The hippopotamus, nicknamed Owen and weighing about 300 kilograms,
was swept down Sabaki River into the Ind ian Ocean,
then forced back to shore when tsunami 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 away and lost its mother, the hippo was traumatized.
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 followed 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.
"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take,
but by the moments that take our breath away."
This is a real story that shows that our differences don't matter much when we need the comfort of another.
We could all learn a lesson from these
two creatures of God,
"Look beyond the differences and
find a way to walk the path together."
Save the Earth... it's the only planet with chocolate.
