#Pygmy hippos

[boodetective]

me when i love someone

[antiqueanimals]

Pygmy hippopotamus. Last Chance on Earth; a Requiem for Wildlife. Roger A. Caras. Illustrated by Charles Fracé. 1966.

Internet Archive

[handbellanon]

Table next to me at dinner last night, two 30-something besties planning a trip together, with brief interludes of other topics:

“Moo deng is a once-in-a-generation meme.”

(There was also mention of a Pesto (?), but I live under a rock, so no idea about that one)

A few minutes later: “I interned at a zoo in high school.”

[aniseandspearmint]

just read an article about how people are showing up to see her and are throwing stuff at her to wake her up bc she's a BABY and babies SLEEP a lot but she's BORING like that apparently

people can be such jerks

obsessed with this baby hippo from thailand's khao khew zoo.. she has been so utterly betrayed by the world

[marissasketch]

Had to paint Moo Deng!! I love her so much

[celesse]

THE WATER WINGS DO NOTHING

[fluffysheeps]

Moo Deng 🦛💖

[gneasa]

I can hear these images so clearly...

Wet Beast Rotation

[knightofleo]

[nicolethered]

She’s so relatable, I also alternate between wanting to be loved and then feeling annoyed by the attention.

New Moo Deng!

[staff]

Tumblr Tuesday: Moo Deng, Queen of Our Hearts

Moo Deng, bouncy pork, literal baby girl. The knee chomp, the bath aversion, the belly rolls, the cheek scritches, the sleepy snot bubble, the exasperated scream—she has it all. Moo Deng, we love you.

@polarmary:

@najmetender:

@thwipped:

@marissasketch:

@rabbit1225:

@batwynn:

@seasneeze:

@artbyjasonleung:

@clurzo:

@projectniko:

@vilicoco:

@anxiette:

@celesse:

@fluffysheeps:

@tofupixel:

@pancake-fluffz:

@alexplantewpg:

@beepophobia:

@jeeklaart:

@eiririnn:

@kollapsar:

@twinkskeletons:

@oddarette:

@kentrl-z:

[bebx]

Fuck it. Moo Deng posting on main

© Khao Kheow Zoo, Thailand

By the way, her name Moo Deng are Thai words translated to “bouncy pork” which is a common Thai dish — as Moo means “pig” or “pork” (Thai language uses Moo for both pig and pork interchangeably), while Deng means “bouncy and slippery”. Thus Moo Deng (bouncy pork) got her name from her “bouncy and slippery” nature :)

Also for those who were wondering, here’s what the actual Moo Deng (bouncy pork) looks like as a dish

[ihazyourkitty]

The sad thing is, if you try to comment this sort of stuff on those videos, people will come at you for being a whiny keyboard activist. Which... look, sometimes negative comments on animal videos are just that, but you should also not watch cute vids with your brain turned off. Sometimes the people making those killjoy comments actually know what they are talking about.

Not to be a killjoy (though it is what I do best) but the unsafe and rough handling of a baby Pygmy hippo in a pretty substandard Thai zoo being meme-ed into something funny and cute really shows just how much groupthink plays into public perception of animal welfare.

Moo Deng shows avoidance, threat displays and stress around her keepers that are constantly man-handling her, blasting her with a hose and harassing her. The enclosure is mostly concrete, which is horrible for her soft feet. There looks to be some substrate but there doesn’t seem to be any areas for wallowing or deep water wading.

There’s also very easy access of this hippo to the public with no places to hide. I’d love if someone could shed more light on the enclosures but from what I’ve seen it’s not great.

Also the free contact and forcing into tubs that the keepers do is only going to create an avoidant and potentially aggressive and dangerous Pygmy hippo.

But the public happily overlook that because she’s cute. It’s a similar attitude with seals too.

Stop rewarding bad husbandry with clout. Baby animals deserve agency and respect and to grow up without getting harassed and feeling the need to defend themselves constantly.

[reniadeb]

🦛@reniadeb🦛

[aubryjoi]

Moo Deng doodles 🍂🦛

[creelarke]

Moo Deng’s caretaker (the guy in the photo) responded to a vegan, pro-Peta American TikToker — who (falsely) accused Khao Kheow zoo, the Thai zoo Moo Deng’s from, of abusing Moo Deng and other animals (when the zoo’s actual known for having been saving animals, rehabilitating them and treating them with kindness) and said that Moo Deng should be in the wild (her species, pygmy hippo, is considered endangered and therefore she could not be in the wild) — by saying that he doesn’t speak English, therefore he doesn’t know what this person is yapping about, therefore he does not care. And I honestly think he’s a legend for that.

Moo Deng is loved and is well taken care of. Her caretaker loves her and has been taking care of her since her birth, way before she’s gotten famous.

Not everything is about America and not everything needs to be “saved” by American.