Pygmy hippo (scientific name: pygmy hippopotamus) is a large animal of the class Mammalia and the family Hippodae. The body length is 1.5-1.75 meters, the shoulder height is 75-83 cm, the tail length is 15-20 cm, and the weight is about 160-270 kg. The weight is about 7-8 times smaller than hippopotamus . The body is huge and clumsy, with extremely short limbs. It has a thick head and a particularly large mouth. The eyes, nostrils, ear shells, etc. are all located on the upper end of the face, almost on the same plane. The skin is very thick, with a thickness of up to 4-5 cm on the back and sides. It is dark brown and reddish purple in color, smooth and hairless, with only some hairs on the end of the mouth, the inside of the ears and the tail. There are four toes of almost equal size on each of the front and rear limbs, with hooves at the tips, shaped like flat claws, and slightly webbed between the toes.
lives in streams, moist forests and swamps. They like to be solitary and only appear in pairs when mating. It mainly eats low ferns, broad-leaved plants and fruits fallen on the ground in the rain forest. It spends about 6 hours a day foraging. It is only produced in Cote d'Ivoire, Liberia , Sierra Leone and adjacent areas in West Africa. In 2013, it was ranked 19th on the list of the cutest species in the world, and was included in the " IUCN Red List of Endangered Species ".
The good news is that Sapo National Park is working hard to protect the pygmy hippopotamus species and ensure that its habitat is not destroyed. The rangers were trained in enforcement procedures and have been patrolling the park since 2005, and have also initiated community livelihood projects to support surrounding villagers. Illegal gold mining and subsequent hunting continues, but on a much reduced scale compared with the height of the crisis, and park managers and local communities are working closely to stop these activities.
The park also recently received funding from FFEM (the French government) to support research and biomonitoring projects. One such intervention is a community-based biomonitoring program. The program, initially started in 2001 but abandoned due to the 2003 crisis, aimed to track changes in animal indicator species in and around the park for key ecological parameters. Four months of testing of the biomonitoring tracker was conducted on two selected members of the community. Next begins training the tracker on data collection and transect construction. Such a program would help provide data on the relative abundance of pygmy hippos and other key species, and by comparing pre-Civil War data on park species, park managers hope to alter changes in relative abundance of pygmy hippos due to hunting pressure.
But one encouraging sign for the hippos in Sapo National Park is data collected by rangers during routine patrols in the park since May 2006, as part of the original biomonitoring program in 2001. As noted, hippos still remain in many locations within the park. The female and her calf were recorded in an area close to the park boundary, not far from villagers, which may indicate that conservation education programs around the park highlighting the importance and conservation status of hippos are working.
In December 2012, the Liberian Forestry Development Authority and Fauna and Flora International held a national action plan meeting, during which the "Action Plan for the Protection of the Liberian Gemmi Hippopotamus" was formulated. The Action Plan adopts the same vision and goals as the Regional Pygmy Hippo Conservation Strategy and sets out the objectives necessary to achieve these goals in Liberia and the necessary actions necessary to achieve them
As of December 31, 2013, the International Pygmy Hippo The Research Manual records 353 living pygmy hippos raised in 133 institutions. However, the age structure is not very healthy, there are few young animals, and the sex ratio is skewed, with 38.53% males, 58.64% females, and 2.83% unknown. Thirty-day mortality was high for both sexes: 33% of the total.
