{"id":412042,"date":"2025-09-10T02:48:46","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T02:48:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/412042\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T02:48:46","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T02:48:46","slug":"scotlands-baby-pygmy-hippo-haggis-to-leave-edinburgh-zoo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/412042\/","title":{"rendered":"Scotland&#8217;s baby pygmy hippo Haggis to leave Edinburgh Zoo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>A baby pygmy hippo that has become an internet sensation is to leave Edinburgh Zoo next month.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Haggis arrived at the zoo to parents Otto and Gloria in October last year.<\/p>\n<p>Her arrival came hot on the heels of the global obsession with Moo Deng, of Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Thailand.<\/p>\n<p>Haggis went on to also take the internet by storm and quickly became a favourite among visitors.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/f6c762742c4d63e5870ba0f068cc7901-1757411672.jpg\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\"   alt=\"Haggis was born last year at Edinburgh Zoo.\"\/>RZSSHaggis was born last year at Edinburgh Zoo. RZSS<\/p>\n<p>The zoo has now announced that Haggis will be moving to another zoo, where she will be part of a breeding programme for the endangered species.<\/p>\n<p>Haggis is already distancing herself from her mum as she approaches the natural age young pygmy hippos leave their parents in the wild.<\/p>\n<p>Jonny Appleyard, hoofstock team leader at Edinburgh Zoo, said: \u201cAlthough we will be sad to see Haggis go, she is off to play her part in the breeding programme for this rare species.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/bedc4f3352d848769ac8b8f17e4de705-1757411771.jpg\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\"   alt=\"Haggis will be moving to a new zoo to take part in a breeding programme.\"\/>RZSSHaggis will be moving to a new zoo to take part in a breeding programme. RZSS<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPygmy hippos don\u2019t reach sexual maturity until three to five years old so it will be a while before she might have her own little one.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He added: \u201cDespite only being a year old, Haggis has been a wonderful little ambassador, connecting with our visitors and helping raise awareness of the challenges pygmy hippos face in the wild.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The species is native to the forests and swamps of West Africa, primarily Liberia. It is estimated that just 2,500 remain in the wild due to habitat loss.<\/p>\n<p>Visitors have until October 26 to see Haggis before she heads off on her new adventure.<\/p>\n<p>STV News is now on WhatsApp<\/p>\n<p>Get all the latest news from around the country<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whatsapp.com\/channel\/0029VaCESJzKgsNvKKNOYO2r\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">      Follow STV News <\/a>Follow STV News on WhatsApp<\/p>\n<p>Scan the QR code on your mobile device for all the latest news from around the country<\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/whatsapp-qr.png\" alt=\"WhatsApp channel QR Code\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A baby pygmy hippo that has become an internet sensation is to leave Edinburgh Zoo next month. Haggis&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412043,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-412042","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-edinburgh","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-scotland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}