Thousands of people celebrate Baby Hippo Mo Deng’s first birthday at Thailand Zoo

Thousands of people celebrate Baby Hippo Mo Deng's first birthday at Thailand Zoo

Thousands of excited fans celebrated Moo Deng’s first birthday to visit a Thai zoo on Thursday, the adorable baby Pigi Hippo that has become a social media sensation.

The Khao Kho Open Zoo had overtaken the Moo Deng’s fans in the first four days of the hippo’s birthday. Children under 12 years of age can enter the zoo, which is on a drive of about two hours from the capital Bangkok, for free in the whole extraordinary.

Excited fan

Many fans of Moo Deng flew miles to see him.

Among them were Molly Swandal, who traveled from New York for ceremonies. He was seen handing over a tray of food to a zoo keeper for the breakfast of Moo Deng, which Baby Hippo and her mother Jona ate quickly.

Swandal said, “Everything I was seeing started to be dang and I loved him very much and decided, you know that, I have three or four days from work,” Swandal said, “I can work for Thailand to fly it to Thailand. I will only stay there for 30 hours, but it is enough to see Moo Deng.

By Thursday afternoon, the number of visitors reached 12,000, the zoo director Nargwit Chodchi said. Despite the noise of visitors to his attention, Moo Deng appeared peaceful as he took a dip in a pond in his enclosure.

Fans took pictures of baby hippo on their cameras or cell phones and sang “Happy Birthday”, as their birthday cake, made of various types of fruits and vegetables, placed near the pond.

“Moo Deng is my happy bullet, and that is my energy pill, my treatment pill. He is my vitamin!” Thia Chavez said, who flew from Houston, Texas.

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Another fan from the neighboring Malaysia, Jennifer Tang, bent on the enclosure to take pictures.

“She makes me happy. Whenever I insist on work, I take pictures of Moo Deng,” Tang said. “So my whole office knows that I am here … they let me take a week off.”

The zoo organized an online auction to celebrate the birthday of Moo Deng, with photos, footprints and a food container to raise funds for all animals under their care.

He also organized an auction to honor his birthday cake, which went for 100,000 baht ($ 3,065).

Stardom of Mo Deng

Shortly after the birth of Moo Deng, the stardom grew, largely thanks to his keeper Atthopon Nandi, who shared the adorable pictures and videos of Baby Hippo on social media. Atthahapon updates fans of Moo Deng with his squimming moments because he tries to wash it, bites him to bite him, because he tries to play, or close his eyes because he rubs his stomach.

Mo Deng, which literally means “bouncy pork” in Thai, is a type of meatball. The name was chosen by fans through a survey on social media. It matches the name of his other brothers and siblings: Moo Toon (Studed Pork) and Moo Van (Sweet Pork). There is also a common hippo in the zoo named Kha Moo (Student Pork leg).

The Kho Kho Open Zoo saw the visitors’ spikes shortly after the birth of the Mo Deng. But Narongwit said that the number of zoo visitors has fallen to some extent since the height of fame of Moo Deng. He said that there were about 2,000 visitors in the zoo over a week and had seen around 5,000, about half, at their peak during the weekend in the last few months.

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“Moo Deng is a representative of all wild animals, and he helps everyone understand the roles of the zoos,” Nargwit explained the Associated Press. “She speaks to all almost extinct animals, and people’s attention turns on their protection.”

The zoo sits on the ground 800 hectares (about 2,000 acres) and has a house of more than 2,000 animals.

It runs a breeder program for many endangered species including Pygmy Hippopotamus. This species is a native of West Africa, where it is threatened by the loss of poaching and habitat. There are only 2,000 to 3,000 left in the wild.

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