By Katherine Gould
Q: How do you move a hippo across the Zoo?
A: In a really big box.
But first you have to get the hippo into the box. That's the tricky part.
For the past few months, Animal Keeper Art Gonzales has been training not one, but two hippos to go inside crates. Oh yeah, and a black rhino, too. "It's kind of a challenge," he says.
The process is actually simple, if time-consuming: Put the animal's food in the giant wood-and-steel crate and wait. Eventually, hunger outweighs trepidation and the animal walks into the crate to eat.
With Maggie and Otis, the Zoo's hippopotamuses, Gonzales started a few months ago, in preparation for their move to the former Indian rhino yard across from the tigers. Gonzales started by feeding them in their crates once every other day. But Maggie, who was less concerned about the box, tended to eat all the food before Otis got over his fear of the box. So Gonzales decided to feed the two hippos separately. Now Otis gets time to eat while Maggie stays out on exhibit.
When it's time for their move, Maggie and Otis will go into their boxes, which are attached end to end, and be driven by forklift across the Zoo.
Shabani, the black rhino who has lived in the exhibit next to the hippos for the past three years, was moved to the Peace River Refuge in Florida where she will become part of a breeding group. All three moves are necessary to make room for construction of the new Pachyderm Forest.
"I will miss them," Gonzales says of the three large mammals. "Shabani is probably my favorite on the string. But I think it will be good for her to be in a conservation program."
And how do you move a rhino in a giant crate across the country?
On the back of a flatbed truck. Driving very carefully.