Toronto Zoo has a pygmy hippo calf, and after three weeks of Canada watching, she has a name: Maple. The female calf was born on Sunday, August 2, 2026, and she is Canada’s only pygmy hippo calf, one of just three pygmy hippos in the entire country.
A morning in Little Hippo Hollow
The zoo’s team saw 20-year-old Kindia showing signs that labor was underway at about 8:15 a.m. Tiny feet appeared around 12:15 p.m., and roughly an hour and a half of active labor later, one final push delivered a healthy calf.
What happened next is the part that tells you pygmy hippos are built differently from most newborns. She was attempting to stand within about 15 minutes. Within a few hours she was moving confidently around the space. She nursed roughly four and a half hours after birth, and again through the night while zoo staff watched on cameras.
This is Kindia’s third calf, and the zoo says she has proved an attentive mother, keeping the newborn tucked carefully beneath her. The pregnancy came from an eight-day introduction to 31-year-old male Harvey back in January.
Canadian facilities have had a strong run of endangered-species births lately; African Lion Safari in Ontario marked a Canadian first with its giraffe calf Kiwavi.
Hope, with caution attached
Toronto Zoo was notably measured in how it announced this. Kindia successfully raised her daughter Penelope in 2018, but calf survival in this species can be difficult, and the team said it would keep monitoring mother and calf around the clock through the critical first days rather than declare victory.
“Welcoming a pygmy hippo calf is far more than a celebration of new life,” said Dolf DeJong, the zoo’s CEO. “Pygmy hippos are endangered, and their wild populations continue to decline due to habitat loss and human pressures. This birth represents the critical role modern accredited zoos play in conservation, scientific collaboration, and maintaining healthy populations that contribute to the long-term survival of the species.”
Why “Maple”
The name was revealed on August 21. The zoo’s reasoning was straightforward: she was born in Canada, the country adopted her immediately, and the maple leaf is the one symbol everybody shares. As the zoo put it, she is Canada’s baby.
There is a limited-edition plush with her name embroidered on it at the Zootique and online, with 10 percent of proceeds going to the Toronto Zoo Wildlife Conservancy.
When can guests see Maple?
Not yet. Mother and calf are still behind the scenes in Little Hippo Hollow, which is not accessible to visitors, while the two of them bond. The zoo has said it will announce when that changes.
It is worth waiting for. Pygmy hippos are roughly a tenth the size of the common hippo, they are shy and largely nocturnal in the forests and swamps of West Africa, and there are only three of them in Canada. When Maple does come out with Kindia and Harvey, Toronto will have the only place in the country to see a family of them together.
