Brian

Well surprise surprise look what Liens been up to🥰 She finally had her calf yesterday, 15 months almost to the day, like clockwork. They can give birth in between 14 to 15 months from conception, so it’s just as it should be👌 He seems to be healthy, first week is always exciting, but she’s such a good mother, and always take great care of her calves, so I’m sure everything will be fine. He’s getting milk already, so that’s a very good sign. He has his moms lines on his chest, almost an exact match👍 Also same dark chocolate color as his sister Akacia so there will soon be two Cappuccino giraffes to spot on the little savanna, small and medium😄👍 I swung by just this morning to se him him and say hi to my colleagues, feels weird not to be part of it, I have to tell you. Anyway great to see my colleagues, see the giraffes and Lien even came over to give a little sniff to say hello…That was nice. I got a little video with the calf saying hello to another one of our females through the gate, I’ll put it up in my stories⬆️ Lien and the calf will be kept seperate for a little while, that is perfectly normal, but soon they’ll all be together as a group again.

A lot of goodbyes today🥺 So yeah today is a tough one. I’ll be alright, all the animals too of course. But I’d be lying if I said there isn’t a few tough goodbyes. With that said there also a lot of excitement, happines and anxiousnes all in one big weird big mix of emotions. I feel like a (very old😄) racehorse on the starting line. I am looking forward to this new chapter and to see where it leads me…🙏 Once again thank you everyone who’s taken the time to write so many thoughtful comments and messages to me. Really it’s been overwhelming the amount of love and and well wishes I’ve received. I’ve read every single one with your personal stories of your own adventures in later stages of life…Yeah just from the bottom of my heart Thank You❤️ I’ll leave the account be, that way you can revisit your favorite videos or discover new ones you might have missed. If I’ll post in the future I’m not sure, I probably will, maybe some throwback or something, it’s hard to just leave it🤷‍♂️ In way it’s also a little line in here to the animals for me, so it might be a kind of therapy for me😄 Anyway this video was recorded just this morning, Rupia came up while I was cleaning, as usual I just started filming, and it kind of just became a little moment for me. They’ll probably never know I’m gone really, but I’ll miss them like crazy.

One last dance🕺🥲 #nobodyputsbabyinthecorner

While Komtu as a whole might look very impressive, I have to say compared to his thick skinned competitors like elephants and rhinos, he doesn’t bring much to the table in a penis meassuring contest😄 If you swipe to the next photo you can see a very rare photo of the male hippos penis in all it’s glory. Seeing a hippo penis is actually extremely rare, as they are usually tucked away safely in their body, and really only get’s rolled out when mating. Which again 99% of the times occurs in water, so this land mating I stumpled upon has just been a treasure trove of cool sightings👀😝 Warning! By swiping I consider that concent to a 🍆pic But as it is for educational purposes, I hope you’ll forgive me. Anyway male hippos have hidden genitalia, this means their penis and more unusual, their testis, are hidden away inside their body, instead of outside in a scrotum, like we see in many other male mammals, humans included. As a scrotum side note, male kangaroos have their scrotum above the penis…Just imagine it, then google it😂 It’s true👌 But back to hippos, I assume back in the day, pulling a a set of testis in a large scrotum through the water, was probabl not ideel😄 Just imagine getting them caught in whatever lurkes in those dark dangerous waters, hippos call home😱 It’s also another cool feature they share, with their distant whale cousins🐳

If you have a couple of minuttes to spare, I hope ypu’ll enjoy this last #hippotuesday I would also like to say a huge “Thank you” to all of you who took the time to write a comment in yesterdays post🙏 Thank you, thank you, thank you for all the love a well wishes, it means the world to me❤️ I’ve read every single one and a special thanks to all of you that shared your personal journeys with changing careers, that was very inspirational, these kind stories I am definitely collecting at the moment😄 Have a great Tuesday I’ll be on rhino duty, I’ll put some stories up😘

All good things must come to an end, and so my time in Copenhagen Zoo is coming to an end for now. This will be my last week here, as I’m starting a new education as a automation engineer next Monday. This is something I have been mulling over and contemplating for a long time, and I hope you can all appreciate why this decision has been very difficult to make. Luckily I am able to take a leave of absence for 6 months, with the ability to prolong it to a full year. After that I will either have to come back or resign. I’m not there yet with that decision, I’ve been here for 24 years and 9 months precisely, so even thinking of not working here, is mind-boggling for me. I simply can not compute that end-result, but as the education as an automation engineer will take a full two years, if all goes well, I’ll have to eventually be at ease with that outcome. I’ll cross that bridge when I reach it. I know for most of you, who would quit your job in a heartbeat to switch places with me, this must seem like I lost my mind. Maybe I have, but I need to give this a go, it’s something I’ve wanted to try for a long time and if I wanna “shifts lanes” in my life, now is the time, I still have a half my work-life ahead of me, my brain is still pretty decent I believe, even though I haven’t set foot in a class room in 30 years. So there it is…Being a keeper is amazing, the closeness you get with the animals you take care off, is like no other thing I’ve ever experienced, outside the love I have for my family, some of these animals come pretty close I have to tell you. But it’s also a very physical and emotional job, while at the same time demanding you can keep a professional distance, that can be very difficult, especially when it comes to animals you work with every day. There is so much more I want to say… So if you come this far, please find the rest of it in the comments🙏

Okapis might look like a weird mix of a horse and a zebra, maybe even throw a little camel in there, but really they are not related to any of them. Okapis are closest related to giraffes, but unlike giraffes that spend their lives on the savanna in big herds (also called a tower of giraffes) they instead live in solitary in the dense dark Ituri rainforest in The Democratic Republic of the Congo. (And yes it is that specific) But even though they don’t share many similarities in look and life style with their long necked cousins, they do have a few things in common. They both feed primarily on leaves and shrubs, they also share their digestive system, that of a ruminant, with a 4 chambered stomach. Another cool similarity, that is shared for okapis and giraffes, is their “horns” Not that horns are all that special in the animal kingdom, but because they are not actually horns in the common sense. They are called ossicones, and only okapis and giraffes have ossicones, they are a skin covered bone structure on their skull. The stripes are also quite peculiar, and is often why people connect them with zebras, they are most visible on their back part, even though some stripes are present on the front legs as well. Their stripes are unique to each individual, just like human fingerprints, I’ve made a little side by side comparison of our 3 okapis and as you can see, they are all quite different from each other. From left to right we have Atti (our youngest male) Stanley in the middle (our oldest male) and to the right, our new female Elika. Last picture is Elika showing of her best model pose, check out those ears😄

Get those hands up baby🙌😄

Best way to start a rainy #humpday ❤️

We can go soft, medium or hard 💪😘 Happy #hippotuesday

Simple minds…Big feelings🕺🥰 Have a great weekend❤️

Gotta get all that delicious grass😋😆 #lickedbyahippo