Monifa Move

After Taronga keepers helped Monifa adjust to her new home in Melbourne Zoo, the young Pygmy Hippo has definitely captured the hearts of her new keepers and the Melbourne community.

Monifa’s sire Timmy was once a resident himself at Melbourne Zoo, so the keepers were especially delighted to have his first offspring back at the zoo. Monifa is living in the African Rainforest area, whereTimmy previously lived, right near the gorillas and the mandrills.

Since she has moved to Melbourne, Renae one of the Taronga keepers who hand-reared her has visited and was delighted to see that ‘Mon’ has fitted right in.  Monifa has an expansive heated pool and visitors get a really good view of her swimming style thanks to underwater viewing areas. She is quite the water baby and adores doing somersaults.

Monifa's birth has been a significant contribution to the regional breeding program for Pygmy Hippopotamus, a species with as few as 3,000 individuals surviving in the wild. Foot and mouth disease in Europe has restricted the importation of hoofed species making every Australian birth significant for the local gene pool.

Monifa’s life started quite shakily when she entered the world weighing a tiny 3.8kg. In under a year Monifa was weighing a healthy 65kg. Monifa will reach maturity when she is four or five years old, and by then she will weigh about 200kg. It is hoped that one day she will go on to have her own offspring and contribute to the survival of the smallest of the hippo species.

Pygmy Hippos are a rare African nocturnal rainforest species, classified as vulnerable, which is just one step from an endangered classification. The survival of the species in Zoos is more assured than in the wild: Pygmy Hippos are primarily threatened by loss of habitat, as forests are logged and converted to farm land, and are also vulnerable to poaching, hunting, natural predators and war.

Monifa means ‘I am lucky' in a Nigerian language.