New-born hippo dies in zoo

A two-day-old hippo calf has been found dead after getting kicked on the chest by its
mother in the zooloogical park here on Sunday.

The zoo keepers found the baby on Sunday, floating dead in the tank where the mother Bindu gave it birth on Saturday.

The post-mortem showed the rib cage and thorax of the calf badly broken, causing the death of the hapless baby, a senior zoo official said.

"The mother might have inadvertently kicked the baby while it was breast-feeding," the official said.

The zoo has a total of six hippopotamuses, two of them males.

Following the delivery of Bindu, the male hippos had been shifted to another tank to provide sufficient space for the the mother and the new-born.