Moo Deng the baby hippo finds fame as a small Thai zoo’s online “bouncy pork” sensation

Chonburi, Thailand — Only a month after Thailand’s lovable baby hippo Moo Deng was unveiled on Facebook, her fame turned unstoppable each domestically and internationally. Zookeeper Atthapon Nundee has been posting cute moments of the animals in his look after about 5 years. He by no means imagined Khao Kheow Open Zoo’s new child pygmy hippo would change into an web megastar inside weeks.

Cars began lining up exterior the zoo properly earlier than it opened Thursday. Visitors traveled from close to and much for a likelihood to see the pudgy, expressive 2-month-old in particular person at the zoo about 60 miles southeast of Bangkok. The pit the place Moo Deng lives together with her mother, Jona, was packed nearly instantly, with folks cooing and cheering each time the pink-cheeked baby animal made skittish actions.

“It was beyond expectation,” Atthapon informed The Associated Press. “I wanted people to know her. I wanted a lot of people to visit her, or watch her online, or leave fun comments. I never would’ve thought (of this).”

Moo Deng, which accurately means “bouncy pork” in Thai, is a sort of meatball. The title was chosen by followers by way of a ballot on social media, and it matches her different siblings: Moo Toon (stewed pork) and Moo Waan (candy pork). There can also be a widespread hippo at the zoo named Kha Moo (stewed pork leg).

“She’s such a little lump. I want to ball her up and swallow her whole!” stated Moo Deng fan Areeya Sripanya whereas visiting the zoo Thursday.

Already, Moo Deng has been made into memes. Artists are drawing cartoons primarily based on her. Social media platform X even featured her in its official account’s put up.

With all that fame, zoo director Narongwit Chodchoi stated they’ve begun patenting and trademarking “Moo Deng the hippo” to forestall the animal from being commercialized by anybody else. “After we do this, we will have more income to support activities that will make the animals’ lives better,” he stated. “The benefits we get will return to the zoo to improve the life of all animals here.”

The zoo sits on nearly 2,000 acres of land and is residence to greater than 2,000 animals. It runs breeder packages for a lot of endangered species, together with Moo Deng’s. The pygmy hippopotamus that is native to West Africa is threatened by poaching and lack of habitat. There are solely 2,000-3,000 of them left in the wild.

To assist fund the initiative, the zoo is making Moo Deng shirts and pants that shall be prepared on the market at the finish of the month, with extra merchandise to return.

Narongwit believes a issue of Moo Deng’s fame is her title, which compliments her energetic and chaotic character, as captured in Atthapon’s inventive captions and video clips.

Appropriately, Moo Deng likes to “deng,” or bounce, and Atthapon has posted a lot of cute moments of her bouncing giddily on social media. Even when she’s not bouncing, the hippo is endlessly cute — squirming as Atthapon tries to clean her, biting him whereas he was making an attempt to play together with her, calmly closing her eyes as he rubs her pinkish cheeks or her chubby stomach.

Atthapon, who has labored at the zoo for eight years caring for hippos, sloths, capybaras and binturongs, stated baby hippos are often extra playful and energetic, they usually change into calmer as they grow old.

The zoo has seen a spike in guests since Moo Deng’s fame — a lot that it now has to restrict public entry to the baby’s enclosure to 5-minute home windows throughout weekends.

Narongwit stated the zoo has been receiving over 4,000 guests throughout weekdays, up from round 800 beforehand, and greater than 10,000 throughout a weekend, up from round 3,000.

But the fame has additionally introduced some hostile guests to Moo Deng, who solely spends about two hours a day awake and able to play. Some movies confirmed guests splashing water or throwing issues at the sleeping baby hippo to attempt to wake her up. The hippo pit now has a signal warning guests in opposition to throwing issues at Moo Deng — posted prominently at the entrance in Thai, English and Chinese.

Narongwit stated the zoo would take motion underneath the animal safety regulation if folks mistreat the animal. The zoo director stated that since clips emerged online of individuals treating Moo Deng poorly, drawing a fierce backlash, they have not seen anybody partaking in such conduct.

For followers who cannot make the journey or are discouraged after seeing the crowds for Moo Deng, the Khao Kheow Open Zoo arrange cameras and plans to start out a 24-hour reside feed of the baby hippo in the coming week.