Opposites attract at animal sanctuary

ONE is a 120-year-old giant tortoise, the other a baby hippopotamus - an unlikely pairing although from a distance, it could be said, they do bear a slight resemblance.

But the two animals have become inseparable since they met at a Kenyan animal sanctuary after the baby hippo was rescued by game wardens.

The one-year-old hippo calf, christened Owen, was rescued last month, suffering from dehydration, after being separated from his herd in a river that runs into the Indian Ocean. "When we released Owen into the enclosure, he lumbered to the tortoise which has a dark grey colour similar to grown-up hippos’," said Sabine Baer, rehabilitation and ecosystems manager at Haller Park.

Ms Baer said the hippo’s chances of survival in another herd were very slim, predicting that a dominant male would have killed him.

However, Owen’s relationship with the Aldabran tortoise named Mzee, Swahili for old man, may end soon.

The sanctuary plans to place Owen with Cleo, a lonely female hippopotamus.