NAIROBI — A baby hippo only needs a few things to break the internet: a good story, and a good amount of cuteness.
Bumpy has both, in abundance. And the world is in desperate need.
First, the story.
Night was falling earlier this month outside Naivasha, north of Nairobi, when a Kenya Wildlife Service team received an unusual tip. A dead hippopotamus had been spotted near the Lake Oloiden Resort, with a pint-size calf at its side. A team of rangers and veterinarians were dispatched to the scene.
“The calf was leaning on the mother … not moving away and quite helpless,” said Dominic Mijele, a Kenya Wildlife Service veterinarian who was briefed on the rescue. He “was hungry, nervous, and staring at death.”
Ruling out tranquilizers to avoid the risk of drowning him in the water where his mother had died, the team used capture nets to lift the calf. Mijele said that operation was delicate and rare — the first of its kind in nine years.
Vets determined that the calf was about a month old and that he had stayed with his mother for about 48 hours after her death, said Mijele.
When Angela Sheldrick, the chief executive of Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, a rehabilitation center that partners with KWS and mostly works with elephants, learned about the situation, she didn’t hesitate.
“Expect a hippo, not an elephant,” she warned the keepers in a call, asking them to prepare the stables.
Still, she added, she didn’t think anyone was fully ready “for the tiny little adorable creature” that arrived. They chose his name because his skin at first appeared heavily wrinkled — signs of dehydration and malnutrition. That night, he snuggled up with a big bottle of formula and a keeper, Simon Maina Wanjohi. Sheldrick posted a photo of Bumpy, swaddled in a cherry blanket next to Wanjohi, who had set out a mattress in the hay.
“Meet Bumpy! This enchanting little chap was rescued over the weekend,” read the caption. “After his fraught ordeal, he finally felt at peace and slept soundly in the crook of Simon’s arm.”
And so was born the legend of Bumpy.
The photo got more than 250,000 likes. Subsequent videos — of Bumpy cuddling with Wanjohi; of Bumpy in a helicopter, flying to a sanctuary; of Bumpy doing a 360-degree lateral roll in the water — racked up millions of views and infatuated comments.
“You are the highlight of my life right now — with all the craziness in the world,” read one comment. “You give me hope in very dark days.”
“Oh Bumpy,” read another comment. “Sheldrick might have rescued you, but you’ve rescued a lot of us.”
Sheldrick said the young hippo appeared to capture an emotion bigger than he is: “Bumpy is just what the world needed. He is like a tonic, this vulnerable, enchanting, lovely creature.”
At first, Sheldrick said, staff were a bit surprised at how viral Bumpy had gone. The conservation institute has lots of other baby animals — all of them adorable, and none of them quite as viral.
They decided not to question it.
“There is just something about Bumpy,” she said. In a world where the news can feel like a “pressure-cooker,” she added, Bumpy’s playful spirit feels infectious — in spite of “a tragic beginning.”
It’s impossible to say what happened to Bumpy’s mother, she said, but it is likely that she died defending him. Hippos are deeply social animals, but male hippos sometimes kill young hippos sired by other males.
Lake Naivasha is known for its abundance of hippos, a vulnerable species, and for its diversity of birds. While young hippos can weigh less than 100 pounds, adults weigh thousands of pounds and are highly dangerous to the unwary.
Now, Bumpy is living at Sheldrick’s Kaluku Nursery with other orphaned animals including giraffes, buffalo, warthogs, and elephants. Sheldrick said he “gets along with everyone,” including her sons’ dogs, and retains a special fondness for his keepers.
“Despite his fraught beginning, nothing fazes him,” she said. “Bumpy has the heart of a lion.”
Mostly, he spends his days feeding and swimming in an artificial pond, which he has all to himself.
His signature move is a 360-degree roll, which starts with some milk from his keepers and ends with a wiggle of his ears.
Eventually, Sheldrick said, Bumpy will be reintroduced to his natural habitat, in keeping with the goals of the foundation.
But he is taking baby steps. His next challenge: a slightly bigger pond for splashing.