South Africa’s Rooibos-Quaffing Celebrity Hippo

Jessica the hippo is considered to be one of the world’s most famous animal stars, having played the lead in several National Geographic documentaries, appeared on the Discovery Channel, SKY news, BBC, Japanese, German and Australian TV – she has even made it onto the Oprah Winfrey Show.

In fact, thousands of tourists flock annually to the six-hectare reserve in Hoedspruit, situated along the Blyde River in Mpumalanga, to catch a glimpse of her.

Honorary game ranger Tonie Joubert and his wife, Shirley, have raised Jessica since she was a calf, having rescued her during the devastating floods that ravaged parts of Mozambique and South Africa in 2000.

They believe that shortly after being born, the baby hippo must have been swept downstream. She was found by the Jouberts, alive and intact, on the banks of the Blyde River, near their home.

Obviously weak and exhausted by her ordeal, she had no energy, and when Tonie picked her up, he realised her umbilical cord was still attached, meaning she was no more than a few hours old.

She needed milk urgently, he recalls, but because she was so young and small, she couldn’t be fed pure cow’s milk. Instead, he prepared a formula of his own creation, consisting of egg yolk, cream and full cream cow’s milk, to create a substitute for colostrum. To their surprise, she liked it so much that it appeared she could hardly get enough of this formula.

When they saved her, Jessica weighed just 16kg and was 30cm tall at the shoulder – the smallest hippo they had ever seen. Moreover, every day she had to consume 10 per cent of her body mass in milk, around 1.6 litres. Since her chances of survival in the wild were very slim, the Jouberts chose against letting nature take its course and instead adopted her into their family.

What makes this curious South African tale even more unique is that when the time came to wean her, the Jouberts experimented with various teas, but the only one she took to was a homegrown favourite, rooibos. Still Jessica’s favourite, she eagerly gulps down about 20 litres of rooibos tea daily, preferring to take it warm with a bit of brown sugar. According to the Jouberts, Jessica has it for breakfast, lunch and supper and always nudges them for a final drink just before bedtime. They claim that it helps her to fall peacefully asleep on the veranda with her best friends – the couple’s five English bull terriers.

A movie icon

With more than 100 films to her name, the Jouberts reckon Jessica must be one of the most documented animals on the planet. Not only did she star in Leon Schuster’s blockbuster movie, Mr Bones, but Jessica also has her own fan page, and celebrities from around the globe come to visit her.

Tourists especially love to take turns feeding her a warm bottle of rooibos tea and some well-prepared sweet potatoes cut into slices, which, the Jouberts point out, she simply can’t resist.

They consider her a dear friend and note that Jessica is very protective of them. While hippos are known to be aggressive, Jessica is gentle and kind. In 2012, history repeated itself, with the couple finding another newborn hippo – a male they named Richie – after similar flooding.

Today, Richie and Jessica are firm friends, and both love watching television and listening to music with the Jouberts … and, of course, enjoying multiple bottles of rooibos tea every day.

According to Marthane Swart, secretariat of the SA Rooibos Council (SARC), the brew not only has a high level of antioxidants, but is also known for its alkalising benefits. This, she adds, is why rooibos is a core ingredient in many pet foods.

In fact, as the Jouberts and their adopted “children” have discovered, the variety of antioxidants and bioflavonoids in the liquid make rooibos an important daily supplement – for both pets and humans.