I was aware of the popularity of a Pygmy hippo, Moo Deng and had seen videos of how she was handled. Needless to say, having experienced watching animals in captivity, in the wild and also speaking to experts, I could observe indication of distress from the animal in those videos. The main issue is not so much on how the hippo responded, but confirmation bias when humans are being blindsided with things like popularity and anthropomorphism. These trends are popular not because it is educational, but because the animal looked cute when provoked. Due to confirmation bias, people start defending the handler and attack anyone for speaking out for the animal. When I first saw the video, I expected the majority to understand basic treatment of animals like how they would be with pets like dogs and cats, needless to say i learnt that it was the complete opposite. Looking deeper, I came across a comment with someone being concerned, asking about the welfare of the animal, as well as the behaviour of Moo Deng lunging and attempting to bite. Right away, people with zero background on animal behaviours started defending the handler. I’ve highlighted a few of the common response below:
- She wasn’t mishandled because the mum would’ve attacked
- The zookeeper is an expert
- She was happy and playing, that’s why she came back
- They were trying to desensitize her
- It’s just 10minutes per day.
A standard Hippo I met during a trip in Africa, feeling threatened and getting ready to lunge.
Hippos are highly territorial and prefers to be left alone. I understand the information online may claim that standard/river hippos are fearless towards humans, but the fact remains that they are actually observed to be very sensitive, skittish and usually attack humans out of fear and to protect their territory. With Pygmies, they are also known to be much more timid than their larger counterparts.
Unfortunately when these animals live in captivity for too long, with most of them all their lives being bred in captivity, they may not behave the same as how they would in the wild. For instance, protective mothers may seemingly lose the instinct as they see and interact with humans regularly. You may think that this is a good thing, but it is a double edged sword. A lot of times people start forgetting how dangerous they can be, they start to become more daring with interactions and end up endangering themselves and other guests. Pinching them, smacking while the hippo attempt to charge and biting back. Audience laugh as they find the animal harmless. But is that what the animal feels? Often, acceptance towards unnatural human interactions can also be developed through learnt helplessness. Learnt helplessness is not to be confused with desensitization, this is where the general public do not understand. Learnt helplessness, in short means that the animal/person stop reacting as it feels helpless towards means to get away from the stressor. For example, if someone is abused or hurt, they will eventually stop trying to fight back or escape if it is not working, or worse still, if the abuser inflicts more discomfort if they react. Hence the argument of claiming that animals are fine or happy because they didn’t react is hugely flawed. Desensitization is not about smacking an animal and giggling at it, it is a skill that professionals use to help teach animals to feel better towards stimulus. This requires the understanding of shaping and incremental learning to work. I have not once in my entire career see any qualified professional laugh while they pinch an animal, then telling others that they are conducting desensitization sessions. Moreover with no food/incentives offered in exchange for good behaviours.
Just because someone gets provoked regularly and become used to it doesn’t mean that the abuser was desensitizing them appropriately. Attempting to remove protective instinct in wild animals also exposes them to other elements of dangers, which is another topic to be explored. Territorial behaviours happens not because the animal wants to be boss, it is to increase chances of survival.
Hippos, unlike dogs are not bred to learn how to coexist with humans, they are not designed to play with humans, but to survive. The hippo was not playing, but biting out of fear, coming back again because the handler continued to intrude its space. Depending on the country, zookeepers in most situations are not required to graduate as a behaviourist or specialist. Working for an organization, the management leading the team decides how they want animal to be taken care of. If provoking an animal gets the attention and funds they need, they may demand for more of such acts. The same goes for circus animals, elephants, playing with crocs and so on. Just because they are still alive after such sessions doesn’t mean they enjoy these interactions. This becomes a never ending cycle, people get bored of one animal and zoos move on to the next. The one loses out most are the animals.
Cautious Hippo coming out of bushes
These days most organizations find animal circuses unprofitable, more people have stopped riding on elephants, authorities shut down tiger temple and less are supporting whales in captivity. All of them started off like what was done with the hippo; fun, cute, harmless. Because of those who are willing to learn as science provides more information, more knowledge are being shared to the public to gain better awareness.
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