CHONBURI, Thailand — Just a month after Thailand’s adorable baby hippo Moo Deng was unveiled on Facebook, her fame became unstoppable both nationally and internationally.
Zookeeper Atthapon Nundee has been posting cute moments of the animals in his care for about five years. He never imagined that Khao Kheow Open Zoo’s newborn pygmy hippopotamus would become an Internet megastar within weeks.
Well before the zoo opened on Thursday, cars were already lining up outside the zoo. Visitors traveled from far and wide to see the chubby, expressive two-month-old boy in person at the zoo, about 100 kilometers southeast of Bangkok. The well where Moo Deng lives with her mother, Jona, filled up almost immediately, with people cooing and cheering every time the rosy-cheeked baby animal made skittish movements.
“It was beyond expectations,” Atthapon told The Associated Press. “I wanted people to get to know her. I wanted a lot of people to visit her, check her out online or leave nice comments. I never thought this.”
Moo Deng, which literally means ‘bouncy pork’ in Thai, is a type of meatball. The name was chosen by fans through a social media poll and fits her other siblings: Moo Toon (stewed pork) and Moo Waan (sweet pork). There is also a common hippopotamus in the zoo called Kha Moo (stewed pig’s foot).
‘She’s such a little piece. I want to roll her up and swallow her whole!’ said Moo Deng fan Areeya Sripanya during a visit to the zoo on Thursday.
Moo Deng has already been made into memes. Artists draw cartoons based on hair. Social media platform X even mentioned her in the post on its official account.
With all that fame, zoo director Narongwit Chodchoi said they have started patenting and trademarking ‘Moo Deng the Hippopotamus’ to prevent the animal from being marketed by anyone else. “After we do this, we will have more income to support activities that will improve the animals’ lives,” he said.
“The benefits we receive will return to the zoo to improve the lives of all the animals here.”
The zoo is located on 800 hectares (nearly 2,000 acres) of land and is home to more than 2,000 animals. It conducts breeding programs for many endangered species, such as Moo Deng’s. The pygmy hippopotamus, which is native to West Africa, is threatened by poaching and habitat loss. There are only 2,000 to 3,000 left in the wild.
To help fund the initiative, the zoo is making Moo Deng shirts and pants that will be available for purchase at the end of this month, with more merchandise on the way.
Narongwit believes that one factor of Moo Deng’s fame is her name, which compliments her energetic and chaotic personality captured in Atthapon’s creative captions and video clips.
It is appropriate that Moo Deng likes to ‘deng’ or bounce, and Atthapon got a lot of fun and funny moments or her dizzying bounce on social media. Even when she’s not bouncing, the hippo is endlessly cute: squirming while Atthapon tries to wash her, biting him while he tries to play with her, calmly closing her eyes while rubbing her rosy cheeks or her plump belly.
Atthapon, who has worked at the zoo for eight years caring for hippos, sloths, capybaras and binturongs, says baby hippos tend to be more playful and energetic, and they become calmer as they get older.
The zoo has seen a spike in visitors since Moo Deng’s fame – so much so that the zoo must now limit public access to the baby’s enclosure to five-minute windows during the day on weekends.
Narongwit said the zoo has received more than 4,000 visitors on a weekday, up from just 800 people, and more than 10,000 on a weekend, up from about 3,000 people.
But the fame has also brought some hostile visitors to Moo Deng, who only wakes up and ready to play for about two hours a day. Some videos showed visitors splashing water or throwing things at the sleeping Moo Deng in an attempt to wake her up. The hippo den now has a sign warning against throwing things at Moo Deng – prominently placed at the front in Thai, English and Chinese.
Narongwit said the zoo will take action under the Animal Protection Act if people abuse the animal. But images of people mistreating Moo Deng emerged, and the backlash was fierce. The zoo director said they haven’t seen anyone do it since.
For fans who cannot make the trip or are discouraged after seeing the crowds in front of Moo Deng, the Khao Kheow Open Zoo has set up cameras and plans to start a 24-hour live feed of the baby hippo in the coming week.
