Dude, what the hell is wrong with the National Zoo? THEY ARE GETTING RID OF HAPPY THE HIPPO! This, quite simply, is a disgrace.
“With zoos you only have so much space available. . . . We don’t have a strong hippopotamus program right now.”
Happy has a little over a year before he has to move, a zoo spokeswoman said. The zoo has borrowed the giant crate in which he would be shipped, and keepers will soon start training him to enter it. A crane will probably be required to lift him, the zoo said.
But it’s not easy finding a home for a 7,000-pound adult male Nile hippo. Happy, who was born at the zoo 27 years ago, needs lots of clean water, for an array of reasons that include his indoor and outdoor pools, where he spends much of his time submerged.
He also needs his own room, so to speak. Male hippos are extremely territorial, and will attack other hippos, or people, that intrude in their space. “Happy doesn’t want friends,” Smith said, and “hippo space is expensive.”
Solution: The George Washington University should adopt Happy and build him a living area on the site of the old GW hospital. With the amount of money they are charging for a GW education these days, financing the project shouldn’t be a problem. And it makes sense. The hippo, after all, became GW’s secondary mascot after SJT, our University President at the time, purchased a hippo statue after drinking too many Bloody Marys (or so the story goes) while on vacation in Rhode Island. This gave rise to the Hippodrome, an inflatable hippo mascot that accompanied Big George and Little George at the basketball games, and a wide variety of GW hippo merchandise, which, admittedly, I own quite a bit of.
Seriously, if GW adopted Happy I would even donate to the Alumni Association. DO IT, GDUB!
From jamie:
i’ll pass the idea on at the next staff meeting.
(actually that was my first thought too. and it wasn’t rhode island…it was europe. WHY DO I KNOW THIS SHIT!?)
From Lindsay:
Naw, it was Rhode Island…or some other lame New England state…at least that’s the story he told at Colonial Inauguration.
From Mom:
You’re both wrong. It was Martha’s Vineyard. I remember it well from Colonial Inauguration as I watched dollar signs dance before my eyes.
From jamie:
mama ruskie to the rescue!
i will no longer ever listen to anything they tell us in staff meetings (not that i ever do…)