[Mb-hair] FW: Friends for Life

[Michael Butler]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Gerald Gerald <dekuyper at sbcglobal.net>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2005 10:15:27 -0800 (PST)
To: Gerald Cooper <dekuyper at sbcglobal.net>
Subject: Friends for Life

It's true that war and hardship brings us closer
together. Page down to see proof.

It's heartwarming...

?

----- Original Message -----

NAIROBI (AFP) - A baby-hippopotamus that survived the
tsumani 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 baby 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. Fortunately, it landed on the tortoise
and established a strong bond. They swim, eat and
sleep together.? "The hippo follows the tortoise
exactly the way it follows its mother."

"The hippo is a young baby, he was left at a very
tender age and by nature, hippos are social animals
that? stay with their mothers for four years," he
explained.

Nancy Cicarelli Belle
PLANETNEWS broadcast editor/publisher

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