Tokyo: Baby Boom Hits Tokyo Zoo

A Tokyo zoo is experiencing a baby boom. Though most animals have babies in the spring, zoo officials say they planned for this boom to happen in the summer.

From monkeys to sea lions and even pygmy hippos, families are getting bigger and bigger at Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo.

While most animals, such as birds and mammals, tend to give birth during the spring, the zoo says it has planned for the bumper crop of babies.

Arranging pregnancies so the animals give birth in the warmer summer months has allowed the zoo to cut down the costs of keeping the newborns warm.

Visitors to the animal park were delighted although some were puzzled by what they were looking at.

[Mrs. Sakamoto, Housewife]:
„I thought it was just a hippo’s face. But when I was told that it’s a hippo baby, I thought it was quite cute.“

On display were babies ranging in age from a few months to just one week.

They included pygmy hippos, ring-tailed lemurs, and Californian sea lion cubs.

[Motoyasu Ida, Zoo Curator]:
„We’re currently trying to get the word out that there are this many cute babies here, and we’re hoping that a lot of visitors will come to see them.“

Nothing, it seems, draws visitors to a zoo more than newborn animals.

(NTDTV)