Up to 100 hippos, all descended from four animals illegally imported into Colombia by cocaine smuggler Pablo Escobar in the late 1980s, threaten Columbia’s swamps and river systems.
Scientists have said Daily Telegraph that the country must now eliminate the aggressive cocaine “hippopotamuses” that roam the Magdalena River basin, as they reproduce voraciously in the country’s humid and hot climate. In their natural African habitat, hippos face a long dry season.
Escobar, who was said to be worth $ 25 billion at his height, making him the seventh richest man in the world, was known for buying lavish gifts and boasting that he literally burns money occasionally to keep up. warm family.
In 2020, a grandson found an $ 18 million plastic bag hidden in the wall of one of his old homes.
His zoo, complete with elephants and hippos, was just another treat.
When he was shot in 1993, the Colombian government took control of his property, including animals, most of which were euthanized or sent to zoos and parks.
However, four hippos, who lived in a remote pond, escaped slaughter; now there are dozens of them living in the wild. The exact number is unknown, but Telegraph puts the number between 80 and 100, which says it makes them the largest invasive species on the planet. Their number will increase to almost 1,500 by 2040 if left unchecked.
“Nobody likes the idea of shooting a hippopotamus, but we have to accept that no other strategy will work,” said ecologist Nataly Castelblanco-Martínez The telegraph.
Hippos have become a local tourist attraction; Paying visitors can visit Escobar’s former mansion and visit the lake where dozens of hippos now live.
But researchers say hippos compete with native wildlife and pollute local waterways with their toxic urine and feces.
Hippos are aggressive and kill more people each year than any other African mammal. Last year, a Colombian farmer was bitten by a hippopotamus and blown up, breaking his leg, hip and several ribs.
Another debatable method of controlling hippos, sterilization, failed – due to the fact that male hippos have retractable testicles.
Said David Echeverri Lopez, a government ecologist telegraph that it is able to castrate about one hippopotamus a year, while scientists estimate that the population is growing by 10% annually.