Auckland Zoo Auckland Zoo deeply saddened by loss of hippo Snorkel

zooboy28

zooboy28

Well-Known Member
Auckland Zoo is today mourning the loss of one of its oldest residents, 50-year-old female hippo, Snorkel.

One of the oldest hippos in a zoo in the world, Snorkel's health declined dramatically over the past three weeks. Given her greatly reduced quality of life due to this decline, and following the Zoo exhausting all efforts to treat her, Snorkel was last night euthanased.

"This was a very carefully considered decision, made in consultation with our vet team and keeping staff. While a tough call – especially for an animal such as Snorkel, who was born here, and has been so much part of the Zoo family, euthanasia was the only humane option," says Auckland Zoo director, Jonathan Wilcken.

Mr Wilcken says, given the average life span of a hippo in a zoo is 40 – 45 years, Snorkel has had a great innings.

"Snorkel is an animal who has loved the social interaction of her keepers and delighted many visitors who have met her up close on our Zoom tours. She will be greatly missed by everyone here, and we're sure, by those Zoo visitors who got to know her well over the years," says Mr Wilcken
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Auckland Zoo Auckland Zoo deeply saddened by loss of hippo Snorkel

RIP Snorkel, I remember feeding you on one of those tours, you were an awesome animal, and will be much missed.
 
Truly a great innings - she was born at Auckland Zoo on 14/10/1959, just short of her 51st birthday.
 
Interesting to see that Snorkel had been moved prior to her death, not sure when exactly, but on a recent visit to Auckland Zoo I saw that the bottom of the Baboon Hill exhibit and moat had been hippo-proofed, and there were hippo signs at the exhibit. While a mixed baboon/hippo exhibit sounds really good, and would of allowed Te Wao Nui work to start on her old enclosure, and kept Snorkel on display (cf. new enclosure at back of elephants), I wonder how stressful the move was for her.

Does anyone know how long she lived in the baboon exhibit and whether there was much in the way of hippo-baboon interaction?
 
Whenever I hear of these really long lived animals dying I always think it like some old timer in a small close knit community passing away, or an elderly great aunt who knows all the scandel and gossip from the last 90 years of your family. That person/animal represents the history ofthat community and something really valuable is lost. Its the bears at Taronga, the African elephants at Dubbo, a jaguar at DDZ.
 
Baboon and Hippo mixed exhibit eh? If you read Cecil Webb's A WANDERER IN THE WIND, there's a fairly scary story of Pygmy Hippos eating monkeys and waterfowl, and an equally scary story of a Common Hippo eating a person. Then there was that Zebra a while back.......
 
Snorkel was in with the baboons no more than a couple of weeks.

It didnt go too well and the baboons simply wanted her gone. She had many wounds along her back from them and she stayed well away from them whenever she could.

I get the feeling it would have worked out better if theyd had more time to get used to each other but who knows maybe the troop woulda just kept at her until she became sick or overly stressed anyway. I guess they just pushed her over the edge or at least didnt help.

Its a sad thing but she had a long happy life (with the exception of her troubles with fudge, faith and the baboons).

RIP Snorkel xoxoox <3
 
I'd just like to point out that the above post by Jalur_Tiger_Cub is not 100% factual. Yes some of the facts are correct, but you have been misinformed about Snorkel having wounds which were inflicted by the baboons. This is not true.
 
I would say 50 is a ripe old age for an hippo. The fact that euthanasia was applied seems just to me.

To put things in perspective: over here we had our hippo dying at the ripe old age of - I think at the top of me head - 44 or 46 like. She simply just had no quality of life left when it was decided to apply euthanasia.

I would also say that some of the posts on here have been unneccesarily suggestive and read things into the event that are simply not there.
 
Laloba said:
I'd just like to point out that the above post by Jalur_Tiger_Cub is not 100% factual. Yes some of the facts are correct, but you have been misinformed about Snorkel having wounds which were inflicted by the baboons. This is not true.
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I apologise. I should have checked out my info better first.

I agree with the statement Snorkel being Euthanised was what was best for her. She lived a good long life and it was, in my opinion, was right.
 
The original plan was to put Snorkel in an off exhibit enclosure behind the Elephant Yard...

I wonder why she was put in with the Baboons instead..?

She was moved into Hippo River when that opened and back out again a few weeks after when the other two Hippos were picking on her, so she was well conditioned to moving by crate... Walking into a crate and being lifted isn't the stressful part of a move, more the new surrounds after only living in two places before in your life... But in a Zoo you have to do the best you can, she had to be moved and there aren't endless supplies of room and money to build off exhibit enclosures for very elderly large animals...
 
I recently learned that Snorkle had a female calf named Solucky in 1987. Does anyone know if she had any other offspring?
 
Zoofan15 said:
I recently learned that Snorkle had a female calf named Solucky in 1987. Does anyone know if she had any other offspring?
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None that were alive as of 27-28 Feb 2006 according to the studbook at that time. It also states that Solucky and Snorkel shared the same father, as well as him being father to both Faith and her son Fudge!

I just came across a very interesting document about hippo history - http://www.izn.org.uk/Archive/391/WEB391.pdf
 
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driftaguy said:
None that were alive as of 27-28 Feb 2006 according to the studbook at that time. It also states that Solucky and Snorkel shared the same father, as well as him being father to both Faith and her son Fudge!

I just came across a very interesting document about hippo history - http://www.izn.org.uk/Archive/391/WEB391.pdf
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This is the studbook I found (2006). I'm guessing it's the same one you looked at, as like you say, Solucky (1987) is Snorkle's only (living) offspring listed:

http://nswfmpa.org/Husbandry Manuals/Published Manuals/Mammalia/Common Hippopotamus.pdf

The document you linked above is what got me so interested in hippopotamus history as I read Faith had 14 offspring! I always assumed Fudge was her only offspring and have since wondered who the others were. Fudge was a twin born in 1988, but that still leaves 12 unaccounted for. Can anyone help?

Kabete, who was wild imported sired multiple offspring with the females, Nada and Bonnie, including Snorkle and Faith, who then produced offspring with their father. Maybe that's why Solucky has never been bred from, and Fudge was neutered.
 
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