ANIMAL PLANET: Is Jessica still single or is there a special hippo in her life these days?

TONIE JOUBERT: Jessica, she's still single. She won't remain single for the rest of her life. Males do come and visit from time to time. In the Animal Planet documentary, we had Charlie, which is a hippo bull that I'd been asked to put down. I managed to save him and, you guys know the story, he turned up here. But during the filming of Jessica the Hippo, Charlie was shot.

We continue to have wild hippos coming here. Since about July, one of the wild hippos — a bull we call "Fred," after Fred Casella, because during the documentary Fred fell in love with Jessica — has been living here permanently.

As a matter of fact, Fred is spending a lot of time next to the veranda, about four meters from Jessica. So Fred is here at the moment. This morning for the first time we saw marks on Jessica's back. The marks show that Fred had tried to mount Jessica, but nothing happened because she wasn't in heat.

5. Has Jessica gotten pregnant since we saw her on Animal Planet?