MARWELL’S LATEST SHOWCASE HER NAME IS LOLA
Over 14,000 votes were received in a public ballot to name Marwell Zoological Park’s newest arrival, a pygmy hippopotamus, and the winning name in Lola. The name was extremely popular and received 7838 votes - a whopping 53%.
Lola’s keepers short listed four names - Lola, Kadina, Loko and Zimmi - after places in the pygmy hippo native home in west Africa for people to choose from. Lola is a town in the forest region of Guinea. Located near Mount Nimba, the highest peak in the country, the town is also well known for cloth manufacture and traditional medicine.
Lola was born a few weeks ago as part of a conservation breeding programme to help save the species from extinction. Lola lives with her big sister, Sirana and Mum Wendy and Dad in Marwell’s pygmy hippo house. Claire Holmes, one of the keepers which looks after the pygmy hippos and helped choose the names said: “I’m thrilled that so many people voted for Lola as it’s my favourite. It must have been a sign when Barry Manilow sang Copacabana with its opening line ‘Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl’ on Strictly Come Dancing last Sunday.”
With less than 3000 in the wild, Lola is a vital addition to this rare and endangered species. Ongoing deforestation in their natural habitat, combined with civil unrest, presents significant threats to the population. Their numbers have steadily declined and the species is now listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List. It is estimated that the population is likely to continue to decline by 20% over the course of the next 20 years.
Pygmy hippos are elusive animals living in the swamps of western Africa. Pygmy hippos, and their larger cousins, the common hippopotamus, play an important part in maintaining the ecosystems of the African wetlands and the surrounding grasslands and forests.
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