Hey baby!

What I read via e-mail:
A baby-hippopotamus that survived the tsumani waves on the Kenyan coast has formed a strong bond with a giant male century-old tortoise, in an animal facility in the port city of Mombasa.

The truth according to Snopes:
The above-quoted account, which has been circulated widely on the Internet, is but one of the many news articles about this unusual pair. Bereaved by the forces of nature and discovered by wildlife rangers near certain death in the Indian Ocean off Malindi, the one-year-old male hippo calf dubbed Owen was on 27 December 2004 placed in Haller Park, a wildlife sanctuary in the coastal city of Mombassa, Kenya.

As soon as he was placed in his enclosure, the orphaned youngster immediately ran to the tortoise also housed in that space. The 100 year-old tortoise named Mzee (Swahili for "old man") was not immediately taken with the brash newcomer — he turned and hissed, forcing the hippo to back away. Yet within days, the pair had forged a friendship, and now eat and sleep together. Owen has even been seen to lick the tortoise, whom he regards as his new mother.

Some news accounts (including the one being sped from inbox to inbox) assert the little orphan was swept into the sea by the tsunami that devastated numerous coastal countries in the Indian Ocean on 26 December 2004, yet wildlife officials were alerted to the imperiled hippo before Christmas, when hoteliers in Malindi spotted the little fellow, in the company of a number of adults of his kind, floundering in the surf off the coast. By the time wildlife officials arrived, Owen was alone, having become separated from his herd. Had he not been rescued, the ocean's waters would have done in the youngster because long immersion in salt water would have led to fatal dehydration.

It is hoped that Owen will eventually mature into a romantic companion for a lonely female hippo named Cleo who is also housed at this wildlife park.