Thousands celebrate baby hippo Moo Deng's first birthday at Thailand zoo
[July 10, 2025]
By TIAN MACLEOD JI and JINTAMAS SAKSORNCHAI
CHONBURI, Thailand (AP) — Thousands of excited fans flocked to a Thai
zoo on Thursday to celebrate the first birthday of Moo Deng, the
adorable baby pygmy hippo that has become a social media sensation.
The Khao Kheow Open Zoo was overrun with Moo Deng's fans on the first of
four days of activities marking the hippo's birthday. Children under 12
years old can enter the zoo, which is about a two hour drive from the
capital Bangkok, for free throughout the extravaganza.
Excited fans
Many of Moo Deng’s fans flew miles to see her.
Among them was Molly Swindall, who traveled from New York for the
celebrations. She was seen handing a tray of food to a zoo keeper for
Moo Deng’s breakfast, which the baby hippo and her mother Jona quickly
devoured.
“Everything I was seeing started to be Moo Deng and I just loved her so
much and decided, you know what, I have three or four days off of work,"
said Swindall, "I can make it work to fly to Thailand. I will only be
there for about 30 hours, but that’s enough to go see Moo Deng. And
that’s exactly what I did.”
By Thursday afternoon, the number of visitors reached 12,000, zoo
director Narongwit Chodchoy said. Despite the noise of visitors calling
out for her attention, Moo Deng appeared peaceful as she took a dip in a
pond in her enclosure.
Fans took pictures of the baby hippo on their cameras or cell phones and
sang “Happy birthday” as her birthday cake, made of a variety of fruits
and vegetables, was placed near the pond.
“Moo Deng is my happy pill, and she’s my energy pill, my curing pill.
She’s my vitamin!” said Thea Chavez, who flew in from Houston, Texas.
Another fan from neighboring Malaysia, Jennifer Tang, leaned over the
enclosure to take pictures.
“She makes me happy. Whenever I’m stressed at work I pull up photos of
Moo Deng,” Tang said. "So my whole office knows that I’m here .... They
let me take a week off.”
The zoo held online auctions to celebrate Moo Deng's birthday, with
photos, footprints and a food container on offer to raise funds for all
the animals under their care.
They also held an auction for the honor of sponsoring her birthday cake,
which went for 100,000 baht ($3,065.)
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A baby pygmy Moo Deng, right, with mother Jona, eats fruit presented
for her first birthday celebration at the Khao Kheow Open Zoo in
Chonburi province, Thailand, Thursday, July 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Sakchai
Lalit)
Moo Deng's stardom
Moo Deng soared to stardom shortly after she was born, largely
thanks to her keeper Atthapon Nundee who shared adorable pictures
and videos of the baby hippo on social media. Atthapon keeps Moo
Deng's fans updated with moments of her squirming as he tries to
wash her, biting him as he tries to play, or calmly closing her eyes
as he rubs her belly.
Moo Deng, which literally means “bouncy pork” in Thai, is a type of
meatball. The name was chosen by fans via a poll on social media. It
matches the names of her other siblings: Moo Toon (stewed pork) and
Moo Waan (sweet pork). There is also a common hippo at the zoo named
Kha Moo (stewed pork leg).
The Khao Kheow Open Zoo saw spikes of visitors since shortly after
Moo Deng was born. But Narongwit said the number of visitors to the
zoo has somewhat dropped since the height of Moo Deng’s fame. He
said the zoo has had about 2,000 visitors during a weekday and
around 5,000 during weekends over the past few months, about half
the numbers it saw at its peak.
“Moo Deng is a representative of all wild animals, and she helps
everyone understand the roles of zoos,” Narongwit told The
Associated Press. “She speaks for all nearly extinct animals, and
turns people's attention to their conservation.”
The zoo sits on 800 hectares (almost 2,000 acres) of land and is
home to more than 2,000 animals.
It runs breeder programs for many endangered species including the
pygmy hippopotamus. The species is native to West Africa, where it
is threatened by poaching and loss of habitat. There are only 2,000
to 3,000 left in the wild.
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