If you get a chance to visit the Zoo this winter, try to get up and see this little scamp while she is still so very wee. I mean, she’ll never exactly be huge (they are, after all, “pygmy” hippos), but nevertheless she’s absolutely adorable right now and you should try not to miss her!
When I called Homer and held the photo up for him to see, he was very interested in it, cocking his head back and forth and stretching out his neck to get a better look. I don’t imagine he knew it was a photo of him, but I would think he would recognize his own species when he sees it. That was quite a bit of fun!
On the day in question, each of the three big cats had been given a large hunk of meat to chew on. Ena ate hers for a while, then began to stalk her offspring – either for fun or to get their food, too, I’m not really sure.
There have been countless new and beautiful babies born in and around the Zoo since then – and in other Zoos and locations, too. But, to my mind, the most beautiful of all were born last of all when Ena, another first-time mom, gave birth on May 18, 2017 during a month-long strike at the Toronto Zoo.
Aurora and Nikita first arrived at the Toronto Zoo in the early spring of 2001. They were found as orphans, wandering around together in Polar Bear Provincial Park near James Bay, in Northern Ontario. It is estimated that they were born the previous December and they had recently emerged from their den with their mother to forage, only to have her shot by a hunter.
The first time I ever saw Kenora I don’t recall any special feelings towards it. Well, as I discovered on my next trip to Kenora 33 years later, the problem was that we approached it from the wrong direction: from the east.
I was drawn, as you will no doubt be shocked to learn, to the Penguin Beach exhibit, at which we arrived about an hour after entering the Zoo. A large colony of over 90 Humboldt penguins resides there, and at that time they had exactly one very sociable rockhopper penguin named Ricky living amongst them.
