A baby hippopotamus, nicknamed Owen, survived the tsunami that hit the Kenyan Coast but apparently lost his mother. Wildlife rangers rescued Owen, and sent him to an animal park in the port city of Mombassa. There, he adopted a male tortoise as his mother. Ecologist Paula Kahumbu said the century-old tortoise seems happy with his role as the new mother of Owen. “They swim, eat and sleep together,” Kahumbu said. “The hippo follows the tortoise exactly the way it follows its mother. If somebody approaches the tortoise, the hippo becomes aggressive, as if protecting its biological mother.”
