Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
When Gen-chan arrived at a zoo in Japan in 2017, no one questioned whether the then-five-year-old hippopotamus was a boy.
The person in charge of the Mexican zoo where Gen-chan initially lived said the hippo was male and import documents also indicated that information, according to Osaka Tennoji Zoo.
Seven years later, zoo staff made a surprising discovery: Gen-chan, now 12, was female.
"Gen-chan arrived as a male from Mexico's Africam Safari in 2017 and has been raised as a male until now. But as he ages, he does not exhibit male-specific behaviour and his reproductive organs cannot be visually confirmed," Osaka Tennoji Zoo wrote in a blog post translated from Japanese on April 18. "There was some doubt as to whether it was really a male."
Zookeepers noticed Gen-chan didn't make any courtship calls to female hippos and didn't scatter her feces around to mark territory like other male hippos, according to Tokyo Weekender, an English-language lifestyle magazine in Japan.
But the zoo in Osaka, Japan recently confirmed that an outside institution conducted DNA tests and determined the hippo was female.
"However, based on this result, we recognize the importance of reconfirming the sex of introduced animals, and will take precautions to ensure that this does not happen again," Tennoji Zoo wrote on its blog post last week.
It said it won't be changing Gen-chan's name. The hippo's male moniker was chosen through a public contest, Japanese public broadcaster NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) reported.
"We will continue to strive to provide a comfortable environment for Gen-chan, so we hope that you will continue to come and see Gen-chan," Tennoji Zoo wrote.
Sapporo Maruyama Zoo in Japan also admitted on March 1 to making a similar blunder. It wrongly believed that a 21-month-old lion named Clay was male when it was actually female, Tokyo Weekender reported. The zoo realized its mistake when it noticed the animal didn’t grow a mane and didn't pee the same way as other male lions.
Mistaking the gender of animals isn't rare. Earlier in January, fans were surprised to learn that He Ye, a four-year-old giant panda in Chengdu, China, was actually a girl, English-language state newspaper China Daily reported. He Ye was known as the twin "brother" of his sister He Hua, also known as Hua Hua, until a DNA analysis revealed He Ye was female. The twins are popular in China. He Ye had displayed male characteristics when she was younger, but they became less obvious as she grew older, according to China Daily. Experts said that out of all large mammals, the sex of giant pandas is the most difficult to determine, the Chinese publication reported.
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.