| Othername(s) | William Johnson Hippopotamus |
|---|---|
| Species | Pygmy hippopotamus (Choeropsis liberiensis) |
| Sex | Male |
| Born | Before 1927 Liberia |
| Died | (1955-10-11)October 11, 1955 |
| Occupation | Stud |
| Employer | National Zoo |
| Years active | c. 1930 – 1955 |
| Offspring | 23 calves |
Billy, also known asWilliam Johnson Hippopotamus[1] (before 1927 – October 11, 1955[2]), was apygmy hippopotamus given toUnited States PresidentCalvin Coolidge. Captured inLiberia, he was given to Coolidge byHarvey S. Firestone in 1927. Billy spent most of his life in theNational Zoo in Washington, D.C. In addition to his fame as an exoticpresidential pet—which afforded him a trip to the1939 New York World's Fair—Billy is also notable as thecommon ancestor to most pygmy hippos in American zoos.[3] By the time of his death in 1955, Billy had sired 23 calves, 13 of whom survived at least a year.
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| Harvey S. Firestone (left) gave Billy toCalvin Coolidge (right), who donated Billy to theNational Zoo. | |
In 1927,Harvey S. Firestone, the founder of theFirestone Tire and Rubber Company, acquired Billy inLiberia, where he was captured on one of Firestone Tires' large plantations.[4]Calvin Coolidge, who was the U.S. president at the time, was known for his collection of animals, including many dogs, birds, awallaby,lion cubs, araccoon and other unusual animals.[5] At the time, pygmy hippos were virtually unknown in the United States. On May 26, 1927, Coolidge was informed that he would receive the rarehippo, already adult-sized at 6 feet (1.8 m) long and around 600 pounds (270 kg), as a gift.[6]
In Coolidge's autobiography he wrote about the unusual menagerie he collected and stated that he donated many of these animals, including Billy, to the National Zoo.[7] Though Coolidge had a deep fascination with animals, he was overshadowed byTheodore Roosevelt, who was more widely known for and associated with his interest in animals. By August 1927, Coolidge had sent the second largest collection of animals of any president after Roosevelt to the zoo, and paid them frequent visits.[4] Upon his arrival, Billy was one of the most-valuable animals the zoo had ever received; there were only eight other pygmy hippopotamus in the country. Billy was a popular animal, and several months after his arrival,The New York Times wrote Billy was "as frisky as a dog. Even the antics of the monkeys go unobserved when the keeper opens the tiny hippo's cage and cuts up with him."[4]
Today, pygmy hippos breed well in captivity: since Billy's arrival, 58 pygmy hippos have been born at the National Zoo alone. As one of the earliest pygmy hippos in captivity in the U.S. zoo system, Billy went on to become the direct ancestor of nearly all pygmy hippos in American zoos.[3] When Billy first came to the zoo, however, keepers did not know much about pygmy hippopotamushusbandry. A mate for Billy, a female named Hannah, was acquired by the zoo on September 4, 1929.[8] Billy's and Hannah's first calf was born on August 26, 1931, but did not survive the week. "Inability to survive the neglect of an errant mother was the cause given for baby Hippo's demise", eulogizedThe Washington Post.[9] Over the next two years, two more calves would follow, both of which died in infancy. Billy's third calf was killed when Hannah rolled on top of the baby and crushed it. "She's just a bad mother", said the zoo's long-time directorWilliam M. Mann toThe Washington Post, upon the death of the third infant.[10]
As Hannah's fourth pregnancy progressed, zookeepers noticed she seemed to be less agitated than previous pregnancies and attributed this to their new quarters: during her previous three pregnancies, Hannah had lived in the zoo's lion house, a stressful environment for a pregnant hippo.[8] OnMother's Day of 1938, Hannah gave birth to a healthy baby.[11]
Such was Billy's popularity in the 1930s that at the end of the decade he traveled toQueens,New York, for the1939 New York World's Fair, where he appeared in the Firestone exhibit. Billy and Hannah successfully had more calves, and because of Billy's worth as a breedingstud, Mann traveled with the Smithsonian-Firestone Expedition to Liberia in 1940[12] and acquired a second mate for Billy, another female who came to be known as Matilda.[13][14]
Between 1931 and 1954, Hannah gave birth to 15 of Billy's calves, 7 of whom were reared or lived at least one year. Between 1943 and 1956, Matilda gave birth to 8 of Billy's calves, 6 of which were reared.[2] At some point during the 1940s, the press started to refer to Billy as William Johnson Hippopotamus. The zoo developed the tradition of naming all his calves Gumdrop, usingRoman numerals to distinguish them. By the birth of Gumdrop XVI, the zoo had noticed something curious: of all Billy's calves, only one was male.[15] Research would later confirm that pygmy hippos in captivity are far more likely to give birth to females, though not by such an extreme ratio as Billy.[16] Twenty-three years after Coolidge's death (January 5, 1933) Billy himself died on October 11, 1955,[2] five months before the birth of Gumdrop XVIII. "He carried his work on to the end", said a zoo official.[17] Hannah followed Billy in death on March 6, 1958.[2]
After a year or two at the National Zoo, Billy's offspring were typically sent to other locations. Among the places to which his progeny were transferred were theCole Bros. Circus,Philadelphia Zoological Gardens,Catskill Game Farm, the Miller Bros. Circus, theFort Worth Zoo, and international destinations such asSydney andLondon.[18] In 1960, after learning that the zoo's female pygmy hippos remained without male companionship after Billy's death,Liberian PresidentWilliam Tubman dispatched a search party to find a new male pygmy hippopotamus to ship to Washington.[19] The pygmy hippopotamus, named Totota, arrived inBrooklyn,New York, on February 4, 1960, and traveled via station wagon to Washington the next day, where he would continue Billy's breeding legacy with the zoo's female pygmy hippos, two of which were Billy's daughters.[20][21]
