Moo Deng, a baby pygmy hippo, became an internet sensation—but will her fame help save her species?
Jeremy Hance explored that question in a recent piece on Mongabay News.
Moo Deng became TikTok famous overnight. Millions watched videos of her antics: gnawing on a keeper’s boots, chasing water from a hose, and snoozing in a way only the very young can make adorable.
The Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Thailand, where she resides, saw attendance double. Her fame transcended borders—she was parodied on Saturday Night Live and even inspired a Thai theme song. A rare bright spot in a tumultuous year, Moo Deng offered respite from the headlines of war, displacement, and political upheaval.
But popularity does not always translate into preservation, reports Hance. Conservationists say the pygmy hippo (Choeropsis liberiensis), an elusive and endangered rainforest dweller, has seen no tangible benefit from Moo Deng’s viral stardom. Unlike elephants, chimpanzees, or pangolins, pygmy hippos attract little direct funding.
“Pygmy hippos are not very popular,” Neus Estela of Fauna and Flora International (FFI), which monitors the species across Liberia and Guinea, told Hance. Instead, they rely on general conservation efforts.
Elie Bogui, coordinator of the Taï Hippo Project in Côte d’Ivoire, concurs. “Not yet,” he says when asked if the Moo Deng phenomenon has translated into support for wild pygmy hippos. His project, run by the Swiss Center for Scientific Research and IBREAM, studies and monitors the species in Taï National Park.
The Khao Kheow Open Zoo says it hopes to change that. Wanlaya Tipkantha, head of the zoo’s Animal Health, Research and Conservation Institute, says the facility is working with IBREAM to aid the Taï Hippo Project, potentially funding GPS collars to track pygmy hippos in the wild.
“Animals in zoos and aquariums can act as ambassadors,” says Martín Zordan, CEO of the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums. Yet for now, that ambassadorship remains aspirational.
Pygmy hippos are reclusive creatures, a sharp contrast to their larger, more aggressive cousins. Unlike common hippos (Hippopotamus amphibius), they live in solitude or small family groups, venturing through dense rainforest rather than open waterways. Another population—the Nigerian Delta’s Heslopi subspecies—has not been seen since the 1940s, likely extinct.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) pegs the global population at fewer than 2,500, but even that estimate is uncertain. Estela suggests the actual figure may be different—potentially lower.
Without greater conservation attention, the pygmy hippo may yet follow its Mediterranean relatives, once found on islands like Crete and Sicily, into oblivion.
Moo Deng may be famous, but fame alone does not ensure survival.
