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| Blackie The Hippo (Photo courtesy of Cleveland Metroparks) |
During his time at the Zoo, Blackie the hippo sired three male offspring and was a favorite of many guests and staff members.
In 2008, the Cleveland Metroparks built a special addition with a heated pool onto the Africa barn for Blackie because of his advancing age. He lived out his last several years contentedly eating copious amounts of produce and floating lazily in a pool he didn’t have to share.
Blackie arrived to the Zoo from Africa in 1955 when he was about one year old, and generations of Clevelanders grew up seeing him in the former Pachyderm Building. He was born at the Mount Meru Game Sanctuary in Tanzania and brought to Cleveland by Zoo officials and board members, including Vernon and Gordon Stouffer, who were gathering animals on a safari, which was an acceptable method of acquiring zoo animals prior to the passage of the Endangered Species Act.
Hippos typically live between 30-40 years in the wild and can live a few years longer in captivity. They are herbivores, and in the wild they graze mostly on grasses. They eat a wider variety of foods in the zoo including hay, vegetables, fruits and other produce.
The mammals spend the majority of their time in the water, hence their name which is from the ancient Greek for “river horse.” Despite the name, however, the hippo’s closest biological relatives are whales and dolphins.
Hippos are classified as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Hippo populations are declining due to habitat loss and poaching but are still found over a large range of eastern and southern Africa.
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