Imagine having an animal as your teacher. How much do you think one could learn from a hippopotamus(河马)?At the Cincinnati Zoo, a baby hippo named Fiona is helping to educate young people across the United States.
Fiona was born at the Cincinnati Zoo in January 2017. She was born nearly two months early, before her body was strong. That meant her body was smaller than that of other baby hippos. She weighed only 13 kilograms at birth. That is about onethird the size of a normal, fully developed baby hippopotamus. Her birth weight was so low that Fiona's caregivers feared she might not survive(生存). She was also unable to stand or take milk from her mother.
But thanks to special treatments and assistance from hospital workers, Fiona stayed healthy. By her first birthday, she had grown to 318 kilograms, a healthy weight for a hippopotamus that age. Some experts believe Fiona is the smallest hippo ever to survive.
Her story got the national attention because of stories on traditional and social media. The young hippo is now a symbol for the Cincinnati Zoo. The zoo has used her name and image to sell a great deal of merchandize, including clothing and toys. She is also the star of at least six books and she is a very popular subject for library and classroom activities.
The latest book is calledSavingFiona, which aims at young readers, telling them the story of Fiona's struggle to survive. It also encourages people not to lose hope and never give up.
