Fiona the icon: Cincinnati Zoo's preemie hippo turns 5 today; fans drawn to story of hope

All eyes were on the female hippo at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden on Jan. 23, 2017, from day to night to overnight.

Bibi was rolling in the water, flagging her tail to the side, exhibiting odd behaviors. She was pregnant and these were signs of labor. Six weeks early.

The hippo keepers counted over and over, wondering if they miscalculated the due date. When they did an ultrasound, they didn't see the baby. Fiona was in Bibi's birth canal.

"We were mostly worried about Bibi’s health," hippo keeper Jenna Wingate said. "We didn’t think the calf would survive."

But when she was born the next day, that premature Nile hippo, who weighed just 29 pounds, became the primary focus of their attention.

In days, she captured all of Cincinnati's attention. And shortly after that, the world's.

She was the zoo's first newborn hippo and the smallest premature hippo to survive in human care. And caring for Fiona – named after the "Shrek" heroine because of her tiny, fluted ears – was trial and error and judgment call as well as research and knowledge and skill.

"Honestly I didn’t think she’d survive in the first days," said Wingate, now Fiona's keeper.

Tiny hippo grows into a little adult

Her birthday is Monday. Fiona turns 5.

She will be celebrated in a Cincinnati Zoo-hosted, $5-to-enter virtual birthday party, a healthy female hippo that does all the things that hippos her age do.

Hippos are considered mature at 5 to 7 years old, though they may continue to grow for several years. At this age, their average weight is in the 2,000-pound range, sometimes close to 3,000, said Wingate. Fiona weighs 1,800 pounds.

"She's definitely still small," Wingate said. But she's pretty much an adult.

Her 'Inspirational' story gives her fame endurance

Regardless of how grown she is, zoo officials and her fans predict that Fiona will remain a superstar.

“It doesn’t matter if she’s 29 pounds or a thousand pounds or 3,000 pounds,” said Chad Yelton, the Cincinnati Zoo's vice president of marketing. "Because her story is the same."

Fiona symbolizes perseverance, resilience, attaining the impossible, Yelton said, and that kind of story does not fade over time.

It is, he said, "a story of hope."

Fiona the brand means more than money

Fiona's image has been captured once again on collectibles and edibles for her fifth birthday.

Rookwood Pottery and the Cincinnati Zoo have teamed up to release a Fiona Mug, a Huggable Hippo Bank, and the beloved Graeter’s Fiona Ice Cream Bowl in four new limited-edition glazes for her fifth birthday. Fans can enjoy her birthday at home with a limited-edition Birthday in a Box that includes an artist-signed Fiona Dessert Plate and Fiona Mug.

"Fiona is a brand," Yelton said. "She's an icon."

To see the hippo's likeness attached to products is routine. Fiona has done cookies (Busken Bakery), shirts (Cincy Shirts), a blend of coffee (Coffee Emporium), Chunky, Chunky Hippo ice cream (Graeter's), a Team Fiona beer label (Listermann Brewing Co.), ornaments, dishes and mugs (Rookwood Pottery) and of course books (Harper Collins). And that's not all.

The zoo's partnerships with the area's businesses started almost right after her birth, Yelton said. There was no preplanning.

"They reached out to us. 'I noticed you had this preemie birth. How can we help? How can we get involved?' " Yelton recalled. “Everyone knew there were some critical funds that would be needed to care for her.”

Donated funds to the zoo from Fiona products over the years have amounted to more than $1 million, Yelton said, reminding that fundraising has always been crucial to the zoo, and everyday needs continue for all the animals.

Sales of Rookwood Pottery's Fiona collectibles give 20% to the zoo – about $275,000 in donations over her five years, Crowe said.

Other nonprofits have benefited from Fiona's story, too. Like when Cincy Shirts and the zoo released a custom shirt in 2020 to raise money for Zoos Victoria, to help zookeepers care for koalas, kangaroos and other animals left homeless or otherwise suffering from wildfires in Australia.

The marketing professionals say they've gained much more than dollars with their Fiona products, though.

“It’s given us the opportunity to connect with our community and watch her grow," said Amanda Crowe, marketing manager for Rookwood Pottery.

More than 375,000 Fiona books from HarperCollins' Zonderkidz division have been sold. They give teachers and children and parents a new learning tool with an uplifting story, said Sara Merritt, senior director of marketing for Zonderkidz. And they continue to spread the pride of Fiona. Illustrator Richard Cowdrey is a native of Cincinnati and followed her story from the beginning, bringing that special bond with readers who live here.

Fiona's story grows as she does

The stories of preemies and perseverance have grown with Fiona over the years, and the Cincinnati Zoo receives letters and emails from new Fiona admirers even now.

Just this month, the zoo received an email from a New York couple who was gifted a Fiona book when their daughter was born: "She was 4 weeks premature … (and) went through many similar issues that your Fiona did. We just wanted to send a hello from one preemie Fiona to another!! We’re hoping to be able to visit this summer!"

And even though Fiona isn't new, there's something inviting about the forever tales told by her caregivers and re-told by so many others.

"You can imagine it, like when a baby is being born prematurely," Wingate said. "She was being tube-fed. We had good days and bad days, and on the bad days, you would leave your shift incredibly exhausted. It was stressful. It was day to day."

Through the long days, Wingate said, you fell in love with her.

The two Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center nurses who rushed in to help weeks later, as the baby hippo struggled, maintain that connection with Fiona.

Darcy Doellman and Blake Gustafson grabbed an ultrasound machine, catheters of every size and different kinds of tape when they were called to help the zoo team. Fiona was dehydrated. Her catheter kept falling out. The two nurses were able to secure one after two tries and remained on call by text with Fiona's caregivers until they were assured she was stable.

"I have every book. I have stuffed animals. We have calendars," Gustafson said. "Definitely, the kids in the hospital know her."

"We’re obsessed with her!" Doellman jumps in.

What makes Fiona a little extraordinary

And although Fiona does everything the other hippos do, she is exceptional in some ways, her keeper said.

She is attracted to cameras, for one thing. "She'll even leave food if she notices a large camera, whereas Bibi is not going to leave food for a camera," Wingate said, laughing.

She insisted, too, that Fiona is undeniably attracted to people:

"She’s drawn to children. Sometimes, people that are coming her from children’s hospital, Fiona just comes over and has a moment with them," Wingate said. "She just seeks them out."

And despite her "mature" age, Fiona still snuggles with her mother.

"Bibi and Fiona are still very close and enjoy napping together and get along great."

There's no sign of that changing, and there's no sign of other big changes to come for Fiona.

"She is now the face of the zoo," said Yelton. "She’s this great ambassador to the zoo. And she's an ambassador to Cincinnati."

The most pressing question Fiona's caregivers get is whether she will remain at the zoo.

"We can say 99% sure she will stay here. There’s no reason at this point she would have to leave," Wingate said. "If she did, I think there would be a riot."

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Fiona Cincinnati Zoo hippo 5 at birthday endures fandom, celebrity