Hello. My name is Dr. Gabriella Flacke and I am asking you to help save the pygmy Hippo by
supporting my PhD research at the University of Western Australia.
I am veterinarian specializing in zoo and wildlife medicine
and I have loved Hippos since I was 2 years old. Fast forward three-and-a-half decades
in 2012 my lifelong dream to work with hippos came true
when I was offered a PhD opportunity to study hippos.
My research focuses on the pygmy hippopotamus
a much less famous smaller cousin of the common hippo.
Pygmy hippos are listed as endangered on
the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Red List.
They only live in a very small area of West Africa
called the Upper Guinean Rainforest Ecosystem.
As opposed to the common hippo, which is found throughout sub-saharan Africa,
all of the world's pygmy hippos are located in only four countries:
Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ivory Coast
In April of 2013 I travelled to the Ivory Coast
to study the pygmy hippo in the wild in the Tai National Park. Pygmy hippos are very secretive
elusive and extremely difficult to find. They live in dense
sometimes impenetrable rainforest and are predominantly active at night.
Thus, we searched for footprints and dung and we used camera traps to find where the hippos
were hiding in the forest. We planned to capture and anesthetize several hippos
fit them with radio telemetry collars and then track them through the forest and follow their movements.
Unfortunately a series of logistical and financial problems,
closely followed by the recent Ebola outbreak brought our research in
Ivory Coast to a halt. I needed to develop a new project
that could still benefit the pygmy hippo. I worked with the international and North
American studbook coordinators from
Zoo Basel in Switzerland and Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo in the US
to develop a conservation project studying health and reproduction of pygmy hippos in zoos.
If you want to know if you are pregnant or not, you go down to the local pharmacy and you purchase a pregnancy test,
pee on a stick and voila! within a few minutes the color change will indicate if you are expecting or not.
However, it's pretty difficult to get a pygmy hippo to pee on a stick!
Fortunately reproductive cycles and pregnancy in animals can also be monitored by
looking at hormone levels in dung samples. The reproductive hormones found in urine and dung
are different for every species and these tests have previously developed
for other animals commonly found in zoos
like elephants, rhinos, gorillas and even the common hippo,
but this type of testing hasn't yet been established for the pygmy hippo.
Thus, I set out to develop the hormone tests for following reproductive cycles,
diagnosing pregnancy
and monitoring stress levels in pygmy hippos using dung samples.
Luckily hippos are very prolific dung producers
so there is no shortage of available samples.
I am collaborating with 12 zoos in the US that service home to a total of 28 pygmy hippos.
In May of 2015. I will be traveling to Jacksonville, Florida to analyze dung samples at the
South East Zoo Alliance for Reproduction and Conservation Research laboratory.
I have over 3500 dung samples to analyse that were diligently
collected by the dedicated zoo keepers at the 12 participating zoos
over the last year. That's a lot of Hip-poo! I am asking you to please support this vital research and
help the world's pygmy hippos by sponsoring this PhD research.
The information generated by my study will help zoos around the world to better
manage this endangered species. The hormone tests I am developing will help improve breeding
and pregnancy detection and will also provide clues
as to how stress can affect health, welfare and reproduction in pygmy hippos.
It's really incredible how much information hip-poo can provide!
My goal is to raise 16,500 Australian dollars for this project
which equates to approximately five hundred dollars per pygmy hippo.
Any funding I receive above this amount will also go toward pygmy hippo conservation efforts
and will allow me to travel to scientific conferences in the future
and present the results of my research to the zoo community.
Together we can play an important role in the long-term conservation of
this endangered and endearing animal. Hopefully we can ensure that
many generations to come will still be able to enjoy seeing the
pygmy hippo, both in the zoo and in the wild.
Otherwise all we may have left is this alternative.
Thank you very much for supporting pygmy hippo research by helping fund
my PhD project at the University of Western Australia.