Before the meeting, neither Charlie nor Moomin had spent much time with other hippos. Moomin’s best buddy was a sheep, but Charlie had spent much of his life with people and rhinos. When the two hippos met, though, they fell madly in love.
Charlie and Moomin both had rough starts to life.
When Charlie was only 2 days old, his family abandoned him in South Africa, leaving him sick and alone and vulnerable to predators. Thankfully, rescuers found Charlie before anything happened to him and delivered him to Thula Thula Rhino Orphanage.
In February 2017, tragedy struck at Thula Thula Rhino Orphanage — poachers broke into the orphanage and shot two young rhinos, Impy and Gugu, who both ended up dying. A few months after the attack, Thula Thula Rhino Orphanage permanently closed for the animals’ safety, and Charlie, Makhosi and another rhino named Isomiso moved to Zululand Rhino Orphanage.
In September 2017, the team at Zululand Rhino Orphanage got a call from the rangers at Kwandwe Private Game Reserve. The rangers had heard about Charlie living there, and they wanted to know if they could move Moomin to the orphanage and set the two hippos up.
Megan Lategan, manager of Zululand Rhino Orphanage, told The Dodo, “I knew Charlie required a female of his own species to ever stand a chance of being released back into the wild, but I honestly had no clue if Charlie and Moo would like one other.” “We had no choice but to accept the risk.”
Lategan and her partner traveled for nearly 40 hours to pick up Moomin and Piet and bring them back to the Zululand Rhino Orphanage because Moomin resided over 800 miles away. However, the trek was worth it.
“We built a small fenced pen for Moomin and Piet inside Charlie’s boma [enclosure] so that they could get used to each other slowly,” Lategan said. “Moomin and Charlie immediately started sniffing each other through the fence and they snorted at each other, calling loudly in their hippo voices every now and then. We were so excited at their initial reaction. After two days of them ‘chatting’ through the fence we decided to let Moomin and Piet in with Charlie.”
But when the moment finally came for the hippos to meet face-to-face, Charlie seemed more interested in Piet.
Lategan claimed, “He scented him [Piet] and chased him around the boma with Moomin in tow.” “In her bashful demeanor, Moomin would creep up behind Charlie and smell him from behind. It was obvious that Piet the sheep had to be removed from the mix in order for Charlie and Moomin to bond.”
It would be difficult to separate Moomin and Piet because they hadn’t spent any time apart in months.
“The next day, we kept Moomin occupied and lured Piet out with some grass before moving him to a neighboring boma,” Lategan explained. “When Moomin noticed he was gone, she searched the boma in a 360-degree round for her companion. Piet had left, but Charlie was still present. She clung to Charlie within minutes and the two began to get to know each other.”
A bond blossomed between Charlie and Moomin almost instantly.
“I absolutely love the way Moo rests her head on Charlie’s back — it’s a real comfort, ‘I am safe’ position,” Lategan added.
Moomin has also taught Charlie a lot about being a hippo, according to Lategan. “Charlie has never been with another hippo his whole life, and Moo has taught him what it is like to be a hippo and not a rhino,” she said.
“When Moo is off milk, then they will stay in a 3.5-hectare boma with a big dam where they can swim all day and graze all night,” Lategan said. “This will also slowly get them less attached to their carers.”
Whatever happens upon their release, Charlie and Moomin will have each other — and that’s the most important thing.
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