Hippopotamus Oklahoma City Zoo Got For Christmas Dies

OKLAHOMA CITY, OK — Francesca, the female pygmy hippo whose arrival at Oklahoma City’s zoo late last year heralded a revival of the 1953 novelty hit “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas,” died Wednesday. Francesca was 26, which is about the median life expectancy of adult hippos, the zoo said.

Francesca had a decreased appetite and showed signs of abdominal pain last week. Veterinarians diagnosed her with dental and severe gastrointestinal disease and progressive kidney failure, the Oklahoma City Zoo and Botanical Gardens said Wednesday.

She was treated for colic and given IV fluids, antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs, but continued to decline, the zoo said in a statement. A necropsy will determine her exact cause of death.
Though she was only at the zoo for a few months, the hippo affectionately called “Franny” was “confident and calm” during her stay there, officials said. The hippo was an instant hit with visitors to the zoo, Eddie Witte, curator of small mammals, told television station KFOR.

“She only been here a few months and she already been one of our favorite animals out her, she was just so personable and she really liked being around people,” he said.

Oklahoma City native Gayla Peevey was 10 when she recorded “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas” as part of a fundraising drive that helped the zoo acquire its first pachyderm, Mathilda, in 1953. She returned to the zoo in December to sing the hippopotamus song when Francesca arrived from the San Diego Zoo. She was born at a zoo in Rome, Italy.

"It was such a joy to be a part of bringing the first hippo to the Oklahoma City Zoo in 1953," Peevey said in a release. "I never expected to play a part in announcing another hippo's arrival 64 years later, but it's been an absolute thrill to be involved with the Zoo all these years, to watch it grow and to see it thrive today."

After the Zoo’s Nile hippos left in the late 1990s to live at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Wolee arrived in 1999 from the Cleveland Zoo. He and former habitat mate, Hope, had two offspring while at the Zoo including Howie, born in 2001, and Clover, born in 2004.

Pygmy hippos are currently listed as endangered with less than 3,000 in the wild. Although they do not have many natural predators, these shy animals are known to be hunted for their meat. They inhabit forests that are being burned and cut away at alarming rates due to logging and human encroachment.

Pygmy hippos are also much rarer and less aquatic than their larger, common hippo relatives. With a median life expectancy of 27 years, they can be found alone or in pairs in the wild, ranging from Liberia, Sierra Leone and the Ivory Coast.

For now, 43-year-old Wolee is the only pygmy hippopotamus at the zoo.

The Oklahoma City Zoo participates in the AZA’s Pygmy Hippo Species Survival Plan, a cooperative, long-term management program designed to maintain genetically viable and geographically stable populations of specific species.

Lead photo: Gillian Lang via Oklahoma City Zoo