Blog
Karen's Blog
Hippos at Game
On the left is Kai, age one year and two month, playing with new calf Max age four months. Photo taken July 2020. Hippo calves play at open mouthed pushing games and often leap over each other in the water like dolphins. They will gape like this and joust with each...
Temba’s Familly- 2020
This is Tembia hippo’s family with himself totaling 15 hippos. Three new calves born to his family this year 2020. Tembia is very special as he was conceived when Karen Paolillo first fed the last hippos of the Turgwe River back in 1991/92. His mother Lace conceived...
Name a New Baby Hippo – July 2020 (winning name : Kia)
Please enter the draw below so that you have a chance to win and name the new baby hippo. He was born around the end of April 2020 Send us a male name and you may be lucky to win the draw to name this lovely new son for Odile and Tembia. The draw will be on the 3rd...
Welcoming Max !
Last May, we started a draw to name our latest cub born between 10 & 11th March 2020. He is a male, and his mother is Relief and father is probably Kuchek. His name is MAX and he is Relief’s third son. Relief's older son Steve has now become what we call our...
Happy News in May
Life here in the bush at Turgwe Hippo Trust has been interesting of late in that we now have a resident house hippo! Steve a young male of 2 years and nine months was chased out of the family pod at the beginning of this year. This was because his mother Relief was...
New Baby Hippo Naming Draw – May 2020
Please enter the draw below so that you have a chance to win and name the new baby hippo. Send us a male and a female name and once we know the sex of the baby we will choose the name from the winning ticket. Your donation for this draw helps the Turgwe Hippo Trust...
New : Perpetual Auction on FaceBook to help the Turgwe Trust
Dear All a wonderful couple David and Jayne Shephard of the UK have just set up this auction page on facebook to help with feeding the hippos and other animals this year and with other needs for the Turgwe Hippo Trust in the future. Please go on to the page and either...
Bonbon hippo eating the food at night
So impressed with BonBon hippo. I started putting food out for them for this localized drought on Saturday. They are just under one mile from where I put the food but it is in the same place as I laid it out in 2016. 3 years later darling BonBon arrived...
Name the new baby with your preferred birthname – Draw is done!
New baby hippo born around MAY 15 to MAY 18 th, mother is TACHA and father could be Tembia. It could quite possibly be a male as it is a large calf but we will have to be patient and wait to find out. You now have the chance to name this baby. I would suggest if you...
Herbert attacked by a crazed bull
Today we had a miracle in that I thought our head game scout (Herbert) was dead. He and Elijah went on patrol and at 7.am Elijah came home to tell me that they had been attacked by a buffalo. (Now only about 5 days ago, a man had been killed by a buffalo just about...
Ant Fynn’s Donation to the Trust
Ant Fynn an internationally renowned artist from Zimbabwe, who I believe captures the spirit and likeness of an African animal in its habitat like no other Zimbabwean artist, has given me the greatest of honours in donating to me personally this amazing oil of Kuchek...
SURPRISE left us.
I end this year on a very sad note, hoping that we will move forward into a happier and better new year. A very special female hippo, Surprise, was found dead on December 23rd but I have only written this blog now as I wanted to notify her supporters before...