The Hungry Hungry Hippo Baby

Sidedoor

Smithsonian Institution

Science, The Smithsonian, Tony Cohn, Art19, African American History And Culture, Exhibit, Dc, Exhibits, Pop Culture, Zoo, National Museum, National Zoo, Natural History, Air And Space, Smithsonian, Postal Museum, History Of The World, History, Sidedoor, Museum, Washington, Society & Culture, American History

4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 8 November 2017

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A hippo, an orangutan, and a scientist walk into a milk bar... or so our story goes. In January 2017, a baby hippo was born at the Cincinnati Zoo six weeks premature and some 30 pounds underweight. Her name was Fiona, and getting her to put on pounds was a life or death matter. Unfortunately, nursing wasn't an option and the only hippo formula recipe on file was old and out of date. To devise a new one, team Fiona turned to the scientists at the world's largest exotic milk repository at the Smithsonian's National Zoo. But could they do it in time…and would Fiona drink it?

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Side Door, a podcast from a Smithsonian with support from PRX.
0:14.0	I'm Tony Cohn.
0:15.0	We're going to go down this door, sorry.
0:19.0	The Side Door?
0:20.0	Yes.
0:21.0	The Side Door. We recently visited the Smithsonian Yes, the side door.
0:27.0	We recently visited the Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington, D.C. for a pretty surprising reason.
0:29.0	Since they do have a very large arm span, we stay back
0:32.0	several feet away from their enclosure mesh. a very
0:35.0	large arm span, we stay back, several feet away from their enclosure mesh. How did you see their equipment?
0:37.0	Yeah, you've got equipment.
0:40.0	Long arms plus a very curious nature means that
0:46.1	Arangutans love trying to steal things from outside of their cage.
0:50.3	Producer Justin O'Neill and I are about to watch a keeper take a milk sample from one of the zoo's orangutans.
0:56.0	So she's actually already presenting her nipple to me.
1:00.0	She doesn't know what I'm asking. She knows what this tube is for.
1:04.3	When you work with very intelligent animals,
1:06.1	they pick up on things like this.
1:08.6	So I ask her to present her chest. And I just usually my fingers would manually express the nipple into this little
1:17.5	test tube.
1:18.5	Good girl.
1:20.5	Four orangitans hover three feet away from producer Justin O'Neill and me.
	...

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