Overview

• At a Sept. 11 gender-reveal, father Jahari cracked a blue-filled watermelon to show the calf is male.
• The calf arrived Sept. 3 at about 9:20 p.m., weighed 11 pounds, and is the zoo’s first pygmy hippo birth.
• Public viewing has not been scheduled; staff hope for sightings before the season ends with firmer timing expected in October.
• Zoo officials cite fewer than 2,500 pygmy hippos in the wild and roughly 100 in North America’s managed program, underscoring the Species Survival Program’s goals.
• Because managed populations skew female, a male calf is considered especially valuable for future breeding plans.