Article published March 14, 2009
Uproar over hippo at Swiss zoo calms
The zoo in Basel, Switzerland, set off an international uproar when it hinted that hippo baby Farasi might be fed to the tigers if a new home could not be found.
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ASSOCIATED PRESS
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FROM BLADE STAFF AND NEWS SERVICES
BASEL, Switzerland - When a Swiss zoo hinted that it might feed a baby hippopotamus to the tigers if it couldn't find a home for it elsewhere, the reaction was overwhelming.
Switzerland's newspapers ran headlines like "Little Farasi is going to die!" A Facebook group called Save Farasi quickly numbered 15,000 people.
The uproar spread to the United States Friday when the Wall Street Journal wrote about the 4-month-old hippo.
Other zoos have offered to help if they can. But the Toledo Zoo wasn't one of them.
Anne Baker, executive director of the Toledo Zoo, said her institution has three hippos - Herbie, Emma, and Bubbles - and no room for a fourth.
"I wish we did have a home, but we are full," she explained.Ms. Baker said she had no idea how a hippo would be transported from Switzerland to Toledo even if she did have room for Farasi.
Because hippos need to be near water, she suspected transporting Farasi would be a complicated affair.
Officials at the Basel zoo Friday said media reports were misleading.
The Basel Zoo said Farasi, who was born in November and has since become one of its star attractions, will stay in the zoo until a place is found for him elsewhere.
"We're confident we'll find a place for him," said spokesman Tanja Dietrich.
"There are rare cases in which we have to kill an animal" and feed it to carnivores in the zoo, Ms. Dietrich said. But this was unlikely in Farasi's case, she said.
Farasi has to stay with his mother for at least another year because he depends on her milk, she said, making the search for a new home less than urgent.
Finding a hippo a new home can be difficult because hippo herds will only tolerate one adult male at a time, and the Swiss zoo already has Farasi's father. That also presents a problem because most other zoos already have a male hippo.
Hippos in captivity usually live between 40 and 50 years.
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