He was believed to be the oldest hippopotamus in the U.S. and North America, and on Monday, Blackie the hippo was euthanized The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo at what is believed to be the age of 59, The Associated Press reports.
The zoo released a press release on Blackie's condition, saying that he had to be put down due to "advanced age-related ailments."
The typical hippopotamus lives between the ages of 30 to 40 years in the wild and can live even longer in captivity, according to the zoo's release. Blackie arrived at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo in 1955, where he sired three male offspring. He was born at a game sanctuary in Tanzania and was popular with guests.
"He lived a good life. It was as testament to the care he was given. His needs were really attended to," Cleveland Metropark Zoo communications director Sue Allen told The Plain Dealer. "We did get a lot of questions about him from guests on our grounds, asking about how he was. In Christmas 2012 we did a special 'Hippo Holidays,' for people to take tours behind the scenes, and we got a really good response to that. More than 1,000 people came."
While another female hippo at the zoo lived to be a few years older than Blackie, Joe Yachanin, the zoo's marketing and public-relations specialist, told The Plain Dealer, "As far as the records, we can see no male to be 59."
Since 2008, Blackie lived in a special off-exhibit two-room enclosure, a retirement villa of sorts in the zoo's Africa barn, which included a heated pool. According to the zoo's release, he spent his last years "contentedly eating copious amounts of produce and floating lazily in [his] pool he didn't have to share."
Click here to see a photo of Blackie the Nile hippo, one of the oldest to ever live in North America.
