Happy Birthday Fiona
Happy Birthday Fiona!
For a lot of reasons, 2017 was a rough year. Don’t need to go through all of the reasons why but it was a rough year. Lots of reasons why I wasn’t sad to see the calendar flip over to 2018. However, one story that was beautiful throughout the year was Fiona the Hippo at the Cincinnati Zoo.
A little bit of background...my youngest LOVES hippos (and all animals for that matter), but hippos are probably his favorite. When we went to South Africa in 2015, we actually switched the end of our trip around pretty significantly so that we could make it to Kruger National Park where we could see hippos in the wild. When we were driving back to Ohio from a trip out west two summers ago, we detoured to the Omaha Zoo to see the baby Pygmy Hippo that had recently been born there. So when we heard that Bibi (female Cincy Zoo hippo) was pregnant, there was great excitement in our house. So, we were devastated to hear that she gave birth so prematurely and that the baby was not given a great chance to survive.
So, we took joy whenever the zoo posted a new video online of how Fiona was doing, to see the dedication of the zoo workers who cared for her round the clock, and to eventually see her in person when she was strong enough to get out.
So this is simply a thank you to all the people who cared for Fiona and whose work in caring for this beautiful little (as hippos go) girl and who brought so much joy to what was a challenging year.
This is my favorite picture of her that I got. I took a lot in the times we went to the zoo, but I just love this shot where it seems she has a little mischievous glint in her eye.