Hippo House, interior, Pygmy Hippo, Nile Hippo

How old is this photo?

The photo was taken on the 3rd of March 2009 (the exif data is not correct, but the difference only one day).

So when did Whipsnade get Pygmy Hippos back?

I thought they had gone when I visited in Oct 2006 and I saw no sign of them in Sep 2008...

In the ISIS global database there are a pair of pygmy hippos in Whipsnade. The male is 3 years old and he arrived to Whipsnade from Aguilas Jungle Park, Spain at July 2008. The female 12 years old and she arrived from Aalborg, Denmark at October 2008.

It's great that the two are close together, that way visitors can try to compare the species with ease.

i went in the summer of 2006 and they had both species then

Yes, I just remembered that I did see them in 2006 (for some reason, got them mixed up with the black rhino), but not in 2008.

Good to hear they've got a new pair in though

For some reason it always seems to be hippo exhibits that excel in displays of pointless and out-of-reach foliage serving to accentuate rather than conceal the otherwise concrete and metal enclosures. If modern zoo exhibitry is conservation theatre, then hippo houses must be the equivalent of the infant school-play.

While it is brave (and exciting to zoo nerds) for Whipsnade to allow visitor access to the indoor area, the pool in the foreground is a good example of why indoor hippo pools don't make particularly good exhibits without powerful filtration. I hope one day Whipsnade invest in a really modern exhibit, with an indoor hippo pool that has underwater viewing, filtration, and even fish, in a tropical-house setting.

Hippo House

High tech expensive exhibits is not what Whipsnade is about. It's essentially a paddock zoo; hippos do extremely well there under the existing conditions. A fancy display would take money away from [for example] the capital needed to house and maintain [for example] several Indian Rhinos and a breeding herd of Asian Elephants.

I disagree that Whipsnade is just a 'paddock zoo'....when the Tecton elephant house was built, it was considered at the forefront of zoo design, similarly when the marine mammal centre was built, it was seen as very forward-thinking. Certainly a light, modern, immersion-style hippo house could be constructed to be low-impact both aesthetically and in terms of materials.

Budgets for maintaining existing stock and enclosures are not usually raided in order to pay for new capital expenditure projects, so I would also disagree with the idea that a top-rate exhibit at Whipsnade would somehow 'take away' from the zoo's existing ability to house the species you mention.

In some ways I agree with you about 'fancy exhibits' - the Whipsnade hippo house attempts to make an 'exhibit' out of the hippos, when perhaps a house with a simpler row of indoor stalls and pools, perhaps with outdoor viewing windows rather than access into the house for visitors, would have sufficed.