Owen & Mzee

Owen was a one-year-old hippo who lived with a pod of 20-some family members around the Sabaki River in Kenya. When heavy December rains flooded the river, the pod was swept downstream to the coast, near the village of Malindi. As hippos are the most dangerous animals in Africa, the villagers tried to drive the 8,000+ pound animals away, but it took a tsunami on December 26, 2004 to get rid of them.

Afterwards, the villagers spotted Owen stranded alone on a reef, and unable to reach the shore. The 600 pound baby hippo was not easy to catch, but after hours of struggling with boats, ropes and nets, he was finally tackled by a European named Owen Sobien (who he was later named for) and secured with an extra-strong shark net. The frightened hippo was heaved into the back of a pickup truck and taken to Haller Park near Mombasa, where he could be properly taken care of.

Owen could not be introduced to another group of hippos, as they would recognize he wasn't a family member and kill him. When he was released, Owen made a beeline straight to the park's oldest resident, a 130 year-old Aldabra tortoise named Mzee, which means "wise old man" in Swahili. Mzee was a loner, and didn't much care for the attention at first, hissing and crawling away from the hippo. But Owen was persistent, and by morning the two creatures were snuggled together peacefully. Over time, the pair became very close friends, and Mzee even helped Owen start eating again after the stress of his ordeal.

I have read this book to my kid more times than I can count!

Soon the friends were inseparable, eating,swimming and sleeping together - even rubbing noses on occasion. News of the unlikely friendship spread and soon the animals were world-famous. Unfortunately, after several years Owen got to be too big. Staff were afraid he would crush Mzee and so the friends were parted. Mzee is now back to his loner ways, but maybe someday a new orphaned hippo will come along.