Up to 100 hippos, all from four animals illegally imported into Colombia by cocaine smuggler Pablo Escobar in the late 1980s, threaten Colombia’s marshlands and river systems.
Scientists tell The Daily Telegraph that the country must now exterminate the aggressive “cocaine hippos” roaming the Magdalena River basin, as they breed eagerly in the wet and hot climate of the country. Hippos have to deal with a long dry season in their natural African habitat.
Escobar, who is said to be worth an incredible $ 25 billion, making him the seventh richest man in the world, was known for buying abundant gifts, and boasted of literally burning money to keep his family warm. to keep.
In 2020, a cousin found a $ 18 million plastic bag hidden in the wall of one of his old homes.
His zoo, complete with elephants and hippos, was just one more concession.
When he was shot dead in 1993, the Colombian government took control of his estate, including the animals, most of which were euthanized or sent to zoos and parks.
However, four hippos, living in a remote pond, remained slaughtered; now there are dozens living in nature. The exact number is unknown, but the Telegraph set the number between 80 and 100, which they say makes the largest invasive species on the planet. Their numbers will swell to nearly 1,500 by 2040 if left unchecked.
“Nobody likes the idea of shooting a hippopotamus, but we have to accept that no other strategy is going to work,” said ecologist Nataly Castelblanco-Martínez The Telegraph.
The hippos have become a local tourist attraction; paying visitors can visit the former mansion of Escobar and the lake where several dozen hippos now live.
But researchers say the hippos compete with native wildlife and pollute local waterways with their toxic urine and feces.
Hippos are famously aggressive and kill more people each year than any other African mammal. Last year, a Colombian cattle farmer was bitten by a hippo and thrown into the air, breaking his leg, hip and several ribs.
Another method of combating hippos, sterilization, has been unsuccessful – due to the fact that male hippos have retractable testes.
David Echeverri Lopez, a government environmentalist, says The Telegraph that he can castrate about one hippo a year, while scientists estimate that the population grows by 10 percent annually.