Hippo Fiona Has A Beau; Cincinnati Zoo Officials Respond Just Like Nervous Parents [Video]

CINCINNATI, OH — Our girl Fiona is coming of age.

We take the license to call the Cincinnati Zoo hippopotamus “our girl” because she kind of is.

People around the world have invested emotionally in the now 5-year-old since she struggled as a preemie, requiring the help of human doctors just to make it past her first birthday; when she made an entertainment splash by lending her fame to a revival of “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas”; and as Fiona just generally caused people around the world to swoon every time the zoo staff turned on their video cameras.

And now our girl has a beau, a bae, a boyfriend or however you want to refer to Tucker, her suitor. They grow up so fast.

“Hippos on the Run!” the Cincinnati Zoo tweeted last week. “Tucker chases Fiona!”

Also, the zoo noted, “This is the first time we’ve seen a video of Tucker running.”

And why wouldn’t he? Our girl is quite a catch. Being Fiona’s main squeeze affords Tucker some celebrity cache of his own.

Too soon, though?

Like nervous human parents whose kids have started dating, zoo officials acknowledge the courtship between Fiona and Tucker is the most natural thing in the world, but they also worry.

Fiona is, after all, not quite 6 and, at more than 2,000 pounds, still small for her age.

“She’s petite, and we don’t want her to breed” just yet — or perhaps ever, zoo director Thane Maynard told Cincinnati public radio station WVXU.

Fiona Almost Didn’t Make It

Zoos carefully manage breeding through Species Survival Plans, or SSPs. It’s unclear if Fiona would ever be a candidate for breeding, in part because she got such a rough start in life.

Born six weeks prematurely on Jan. 24, 2017, Fiona was a puny 29 pounds, about half the previous record for the lowest birth weight for a member of her species. She was famous before she was born, though. Fiona’s mother, Bibi, became the first hippopotamus to undergo an ultrasound.

Fiona almost didn’t make it.

She refused to nurse and was hand-raised by humans, who instantly fell in love with the little pachyderm. So did the members of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital’s nationally renowned Vascular Access Team who rehydrated the weeks-old hippo when she became dehydrated, sick and lethargic.

Fiona convalesced in a human-staffed infirmary, but it was close enough that she could smell her parents, Bibi and Henry. To the relief of her human “parents,” Fiona bonded with her mother when she had the chance.

She has been tugging at the world’s heart ever since.

In what would be her childhood and young adolescence, Fiona came to be loved by millions as she picked Super Bowl winners, photo-bombed a newly engaged couple and became an all-around hippo hipster.

And now Fiona is almost grown.

Hippo Birth Control Is Unreliable

Female hippos are usually reproductively mature between 5 and 7, but “because she was the first premature hippo to survive, we were not sure what her reproductive future would be,” zoo spokesperson Michelle Curley wrote in an email to WVXU.

“We are not expecting (or hoping for) her to become pregnant now,” Curley emphasized,

Maynard, the zoo director, said Fiona isn’t having menstrual cycles yet.

“She is on birth control,” he said, “but we’ve proven birth control doesn’t always work.”

Bibi, Fiona’s mom, and Fiona’s little brother, Fritz, are both“oopsie” hippos.

Bibi, now 23, was on birth control, but still became pregnant by Tucker in 2021 as they were still in the getting-to-know-each other phase of their relationship arranged through the SSP. And Bibi was an unplanned birth at Walt Disney World’s Animal Kingdom Theme Park in Florida.

“It's a phenomenon,” Maynard told Cincinnati Public Radio. “There's so much work done in zoos — done at our zoo and others — on reproductive biology, but we don't seem to get the dosage of birth control on hippos correct.”

Bibi was one of eight baby hippos born a year after Animal Kingdom opened. The eight females were all on birth control, and all became pregnant by the facility’s lone male.

The Cincinnati Zoo habitat can hold four hippos. If Fiona becomes pregnant with a fifth hippo, no one is kicking her out.

“She's staying,” Maynard said. “She’s our franchise player.”

She sure is. The zoo is displaying a Giant Fiona Nutcracker at the park entrance as part of its Festival of Lights display.

Below, watch Tucker pursuing Fiona: