It’s no secret that hippos have prodigious bowel movements. And Cincinnati heartthrob Fiona the hippo is no different. In fact, it’s a day-in, day-out job just to keep the hippo enclosure clean. Fiona is an eating machine at the Cincinnati Zoo. She now weighs nearly 1,600 pounds and is still a long way from being full-grown. “Eating is the center of her world. Food, food, food,” said Wendy Rice, the head keeper of the Africa Department at the Cincinnati Zoo. And with all of that food comes a great deal of waste. It's messy work being a zookeeper for a hippo, Rice said. “The number of times? I would estimate around 12 to 14 because they’re eating all day long. They don’t necessarily have one big meal and one big bowel movement, they just kind of eat all day and they kind of defecate all day long.”A single hippo can generate about 400 pounds of waste per day. Imagine what two can do. Luckily for Rice and her co-workers, technology can help. A state-of-the-art filtration system keeps the zoo's 70,000-gallon exhibit pool clean enough for visitors to see the hippos.“Hippos normally defecate in the water," Rice said. "Fortunately for us, if they’re out on habitat, the incredible filtration system does a lot of the cleanup for us.”The 3,000-square-foot building that houses the filtration system took years to plan and cost $3 million. That system uses sand filters similar to those used at pools. There are three 7,500-gallon sand filter tanks. The sand filtration accounts for around 80% of the cleaning of the water. To make the water usable again, the final cleaning phase involves adding ozone to the water.But even that's not enough to clear out the dung. Rice said the zoo brings in scuba divers about once a week to clean out some of the remaining dung -- one of the dirtiest jobs at the zoo. In addition, the zoo puts tilapia in the tank to help control the waste.“Helping keep clean is actually the tilapia," Rice said. "They’ll eat the dung and actually help exfoliate and eat the dead skin off (the hippos') bodies.”In the wild, all of that hippo dung is actually very helpful for the environment.“That’s actually kind of important for the environment that they inhabit out in Africa," Rice said. "They transport nutrients from the land and into the river system. They are fertilizing all day and all night long.”But even in the wild, there have been reports of too much dung. In fact, sometimes hippos poop so much in the wild that all of the fish die. “The concept of fish suffocating because of the amount of dung is because of a combination of things. So hippos are gregarious. They typically live in large pods in their native habitats. You might have 20 to 30 hippos all in one space together. And certainly during the time of year when there’s droughts, there’s not as much water, some of the pools they inhabit shrink and shrink. As that happens and as hippos continue to defecate, that means the water quality goes down significantly so there may not be enough oxygen in the water for the fish at the time.”Fortunately, that mass fish die-off has not happened at the Cincinnati Zoo. Fiona the hippo was thrust into the spotlight due to her remarkable survival story.Born six weeks premature at the Cincinnati Zoo on Jan. 24, 2017, Fiona weighed only 29 pounds at birth — 25 pounds less than the lowest recorded birth weight for her species. She survived because of her animal care team's tireless efforts to save her and has inspired many to care about her species and wildlife.Now weighing a healthy weight for a hippo her age (more than 1,500 pounds), Fiona is remarkable for being unremarkable, just a 3-year-old hippo who almost didn't make it.
CINCINNATI —
It’s no secret that hippos have prodigious bowel movements. And Cincinnati heartthrob Fiona the hippo is no different.
In fact, it’s a day-in, day-out job just to keep the hippo enclosure clean.
Fiona is an eating machine at the Cincinnati Zoo. She now weighs nearly 1,600 pounds and is still a long way from being full-grown.
“Eating is the center of her world. Food, food, food,” said Wendy Rice, the head keeper of the Africa Department at the Cincinnati Zoo.
And with all of that food comes a great deal of waste. It's messy work being a zookeeper for a hippo, Rice said.
“The number of times? I would estimate around 12 to 14 because they’re eating all day long. They don’t necessarily have one big meal and one big bowel movement, they just kind of eat all day and they kind of defecate all day long.”
A single hippo can generate about 400 pounds of waste per day. Imagine what two can do.
Luckily for Rice and her co-workers, technology can help. A state-of-the-art filtration system keeps the zoo's 70,000-gallon exhibit pool clean enough for visitors to see the hippos.
“Hippos normally defecate in the water," Rice said. "Fortunately for us, if they’re out on habitat, the incredible filtration system does a lot of the cleanup for us.”
The 3,000-square-foot building that houses the filtration system took years to plan and cost $3 million. That system uses sand filters similar to those used at pools. There are three 7,500-gallon sand filter tanks. The sand filtration accounts for around 80% of the cleaning of the water. To make the water usable again, the final cleaning phase involves adding ozone to the water.
But even that's not enough to clear out the dung.
Rice said the zoo brings in scuba divers about once a week to clean out some of the remaining dung -- one of the dirtiest jobs at the zoo. In addition, the zoo puts tilapia in the tank to help control the waste.
“Helping keep clean is actually the tilapia," Rice said. "They’ll eat the dung and actually help exfoliate and eat the dead skin off (the hippos') bodies.”
In the wild, all of that hippo dung is actually very helpful for the environment.
“That’s actually kind of important for the environment that they inhabit out in Africa," Rice said. "They transport nutrients from the land and into the river system. They are fertilizing all day and all night long.”
But even in the wild, there have been reports of too much dung. In fact, sometimes hippos poop so much in the wild that all of the fish die.
“The concept of fish suffocating because of the amount of dung is because of a combination of things. So hippos are gregarious. They typically live in large pods in their native habitats. You might have 20 to 30 hippos all in one space together. And certainly during the time of year when there’s droughts, there’s not as much water, some of the pools they inhabit shrink and shrink. As that happens and as hippos continue to defecate, that means the water quality goes down significantly so there may not be enough oxygen in the water for the fish at the time.”
Fortunately, that mass fish die-off has not happened at the Cincinnati Zoo.
Fiona the hippo was thrust into the spotlight due to her remarkable survival story.
Born six weeks premature at the Cincinnati Zoo on Jan. 24, 2017, Fiona weighed only 29 pounds at birth — 25 pounds less than the lowest recorded birth weight for her species. She survived because of her animal care team's tireless efforts to save her and has inspired many to care about her species and wildlife.
Now weighing a healthy weight for a hippo her age (more than 1,500 pounds), Fiona is remarkable for being unremarkable, just a 3-year-old hippo who almost didn't make it.
