Two-month-old child pygmy hippo Moo Deng performs with a zookeeper within the Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Chonburi province, Thailand, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. (Related Press Photograph/Sakchai Lalit)
CHONBURI, Thailand — Solely a month after Thailand’s cute child pygmy hippo Moo Deng was unveiled on Fb, her fame turned unstoppable.
Followers unable to make the two-hour drive to Khao Kheow Open Zoo from the Thai capital Bangkok to see her in particular person can watch her video clips on-line, or just scroll by social media to savor meme after meme.
Zookeeper Atthapon Nundee has been posting cute moments of the animals in his take care of about 5 years. He by no means imagined the zoo’s new child pygmy hippo would turn into an web megastar inside weeks.
Vehicles began lining up outdoors the zoo properly earlier than it opened Thursday, Sept. 19. Guests traveled from close to and much for an opportunity to see the pudgy, expressive 2-month-old in particular person on the zoo about 100 kilometers (60 miles) southeast of Bangkok. The pit the place pygmy hippo Moo Deng lives along with her mother, Jona, was packed nearly instantly, with individuals cooing and cheering each time the pink-cheeked child animal made skittish actions.
“It was past expectation,” Atthapon advised The Related Press. “I needed individuals to know her. I needed lots of people to go to her, or watch her on-line, or depart enjoyable feedback. I by no means would’ve thought (of this).”
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Moo Deng, which accurately means “bouncy pork” in Thai, is a sort of meatball. The identify was chosen by followers through a ballot on social media, and it matches her different siblings: Moo Toon (stewed pork) and Moo Waan (candy pork). There’s additionally a typical hippo on the zoo named Kha Moo (stewed pork leg).
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“She’s such a bit of lump. I wish to ball her up and swallow her complete!” mentioned Moo Deng fan Areeya Sripanya whereas visiting the zoo Thursday.
Artists have drawn cartoons, desserts, and latte artwork primarily based on the favored pygmy hippo, and social media platform X even featured her in its official account’s submit.
READ: Endangered pygmy hippo goes viral from Thai zoo
Her picture adorns memes by German soccer workforce FC Bayern, American basketball workforce Phoenix Suns, and American soccer workforce Washington Commanders, in addition to the New York Mets. Easy photograph manipulation places the cute pygmy hippo in quite a lot of headgear or human-like conditions.
Companies, too, have utilized her picture. Sephora Thailand has a make-up tip — “put on your blush like a child hippo” — highlighting her pink cheeks, whereas meals supply app Seize Thailand imagined with images what sort of meal she may garnish.
With all that fame, zoo director Narongwit Chodchoi mentioned they’ve begun copyrighting and trademarking “Moo Deng the hippo” to stop the animal from being commercialized by anybody else.
“After we do that, we could have extra revenue to help actions that can make the animals’ lives higher,” he mentioned.
The zoo sits on 800 hectares (nearly 2,000 acres) of land and is dwelling to greater than 2,000 animals. It runs breeder applications for a lot of endangered species like Moo Deng’s. The pygmy hippopotamus that’s native to West Africa is threatened by poaching and lack of habitat. There are solely 2,000-3,000 of them left within the wild.
Two-month-old child pygmy hippo Moo Deng and her mom Jona are seen on the Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Chonburi province, Thailand, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. (Related Press Photograph/Sakchai Lalit)
To assist fund the initiative, the zoo is making Moo Deng shirts and pants that will probably be prepared on the market on the finish of the month, with extra merchandise to return.
Narongwit believes an element of Moo Deng’s fame is her identify, which compliments her energetic and chaotic character captured in Atthapon’s artistic captions and video clips.
Appropriately, Moo Deng likes to “deng,” or bounce, and Atthapon has many moments of her giddy bouncing on social media. Even when she’s not bouncing, the pygmy hippo is endlessly cute — squirming as Atthapon tries to clean her, biting him whereas he was making an attempt to play along with her, calmly closing her eyes as he rubs her pinkish cheeks or her chubby stomach.
READ: Thai zoo’s child pygmy hippo makes first public look, wants identify
Atthapon, who has labored on the zoo for eight years taking good care of hippos, sloths, capybaras, and binturongs, mentioned child hippos are often extra playful and energetic, and so they turn into calmer as they become older.
The zoo noticed a spike in guests since Moo Deng’s fame — a lot that the zoo now has to restrict public entry to the child’s enclosure to 5-minute home windows all through the day throughout weekends.
Narongwit mentioned the zoo has been receiving over 4,000 guests throughout a weekday, up from round simply 800 individuals, and greater than 10,000 throughout a weekend, up from round 3,000 individuals.
However the fame has additionally introduced some aggressive guests to Moo Deng, who solely wakes up able to play about two hours a day. Some movies confirmed guests splashing water or throwing issues on the sleeping Moo Deng to attempt to wake her up. The hippo pit now has a warning signal towards throwing issues at Moo Deng, posted prominently on the entrance in Thai, English, and Chinese language.
Narongwit mentioned the zoo would take motion beneath the animal safety regulation if individuals mistreat the animal. However clips emerged of individuals treating Moo Deng poorly, and the backlash was fierce. The zoo director mentioned that since then, they haven’t seen anybody doing it once more.
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For followers who can’t make the journey or are discouraged after seeing the crowds for Moo Deng, the Khao Kheow Open Zoo arrange cameras and plan to start out a 24-hour stay feed of the pygmy hippo within the coming week.
