True Story · Kenya · August 2026
Owen & Mzee: The Friendship That Started It All
In December 2004, a tsunami swept across the Indian Ocean and separated a baby hippopotamus from his pod on the coast of Kenya. Villagers worked together to rescue the exhausted 600-pound baby, and he was brought to the Haller Park sanctuary in Mombasa. They named him Owen.
Then something happened that no scientist predicted. Owen walked straight up to a 130-year-old giant Aldabra tortoise named Mzee — whose name means "wise old man" in Swahili — and tucked himself behind him, the way a baby hippo hides behind its mother. Mzee, famous for liking nobody, hissed and crawled away — but Owen would not give up, and within days the old tortoise had accepted him. They ate together, swam together, and slept side by side. The grumpy old tortoise and the orphaned hippo became one of the most famous animal friendships in the world.
Did you know? Owen and Mzee developed their own way of "talking" — gentle nudges and a soft rumbling sound that hippos and tortoises don't normally use with each other.
Their story became the New York Times #1 bestseller Owen & Mzee: The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship, told by Craig and Isabella Hatkoff with Dr. Paula Kahumbu — and it's the heart of what Zoogle believes: the wild is full of hope, and kids who fall in love with animals grow up to protect them.
Explore the Turtle Pond Collection →
Conservation · DR Congo · August 2026
Trekking the Virungas: The Real Search for Miza
High in the misty Virunga Mountains, on the borders of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda, live some of the rarest animals on Earth — mountain gorillas. Miza's family lives on the Congolese side, in Virunga National Park. There are only about a thousand of them in the wild, and none in any zoo. To tell the story of Looking for Miza, Craig Hatkoff trekked up the volcanic slopes to meet them face to face.
Miza was a baby gorilla who went missing from her family group. Her father, a giant silverback named Kabirizi, did something extraordinary: he went back into the forest to find her, and when Miza returned, her older sister and half-brother helped care for her. Gorilla families, it turns out, look out for each other in ways that feel very familiar.
Did you know? Mountain gorillas share about 98% of their DNA with humans — and each gorilla has a unique nose print, the way people have unique fingerprints.
Thanks to rangers, veterinarians, and communities in Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Uganda, mountain gorilla numbers are slowly growing — one of conservation's great comeback stories, and proof that protecting wildlife works.
Watch Craig's gorilla trek videos →
Resilience · Florida · August 2026
Winter's Tail: The Dolphin Who Taught the World to Swim Again
When Winter the dolphin was just a few months old, she was rescued from a crab-trap line in Mosquito Lagoon, on Florida's Atlantic coast. She survived — but she lost her tail. A dolphin without a tail shouldn't be able to swim. Winter didn't know that.
A team of marine scientists and prosthetics experts built her something no dolphin had ever worn: a prosthetic tail. Winter learned to swim with it, and her story — told in the Hatkoffs' bestseller Winter's Tail — inspired the hit movie Dolphin Tale. Children with prosthetics traveled from around the world to meet the dolphin who was just like them.
Did you know? The flexible gel liner invented for Winter's prosthetic tail — nicknamed "Winter's Gel" — is now used to make prosthetic limbs more comfortable for people, too.
Winter's story is why Zoogle tells true stories instead of made-up ones: real animals, real science, and real kids helping — no fiction required.
Try the Zoogle interactive story →