No, the hippos hadn’t gone soft. There were construction challenges.
Cheyenne Mountain Zoo is one of the most scenic zoos in the world. It is situated at 7000ft on the lower slope of Cheyenne Mountain, just South of Colorado Springs, right above the Broadmoor Hotel. Though stunning, the hillside location and expansive soil make for a challenging building environment. The newly constructed hippo and penguin pools had settled, cracked, and were unusable until the pools could be coated with a rubberized sealer – not so simple in February as the environment had to stay warm and dry during the curing period.