Sacrifice or extradite them: What to do with Pablo Escobar's hippos?
Colombian hippos are a well-documented problem. Growing astonishingly fast in numbers, potentially devastating to the local ecosystem and perhaps deadly to humans. Many solutions have been proposed.
None seem to work.
The four curiosities brought by Pablo Escobar in the 1970s to his ranch near Medellín have grown into an extended family of at least 120 individuals. If left unchecked, they could number 200 by the end of the decade and spread to a living area of more than 5,000 square miles. Some have already been seen more than 240 kilometers from the Hacienda Nápoles, where Escobar lived.
Differences in their sexual maturity and growth from their African brethren, as well as environmental factors in Colombia, have caused them to be recognized as their own subspecies.
And the problems are accelerating. Hippos kill more people than any other mammal in Africa, but attacks on humans have never really materialized in Colombia. At least until May 2019, when a local farmer was chased, maimed, and severely injured near Escobar's former farm.
Here, InSight Crime explores four options for dealing with this issue in the long term.
Shoot the hippos
According to experts quoted by the BBC, the animals should be euthanized as the situation could be "out of control" in the future.
Without a natural predator to control the growth of these animals, such as lions or crocodiles in Africa, hippos are destined to multiply endlessly. Its rapid reproduction could reach about 1,400 individuals by 2034, according to estimates. To prevent this, the team recommends that around 30 hippos should be euthanized each year.
The only problem with this option is that local residents seem fiercely opposed to it. In 2009, the government allowed the killing of a hippo named "Pepe" who had escaped from the ranch. Two professional hunters hunted him down and the soldiers posed with his corpse.
The protests were not long in coming by the activists who were protesting in the building of the Ministry of the Environment in Bogotá. There have been no further attempts to cull them since then.
Sell them or return them?
A recent investigation by the media outlet Vorágine found that traffickers had allegedly been capturing baby hippos to sell illegally to collectors. Supposedly one of the main draws is owning animals connected to Pablo Escobar and his opulence. Vendors are reportedly selling the captured babies for up to 5 million Colombian pesos ($1,300).
For their part, the authorities insist that it is not possible that the inhabitants of the region are capturing the small animals to sell them, because it could not happen “under their noses”, the report indicates.
Another theory has been put forward: send them back to Africa or find a new home for them.
“They are no longer Africans”, mentions Nataly Castelblanco, PhD in Ecology and Sustainable Development, in an interview with El Tiempo. The researcher explains that the hippos have acquired bacteria typical of the region, a fact that makes it impossible to return them to Africa due to the risk of carrying viruses or diseases that endanger their brothers.
Eating the hippos
According to an inhabitant of the region, interviewed by Vorágine, members of the community proceeded to cook one of the animals, after it died after falling into an electric fence.
The animal was cut into pieces and each one took a piece that they prepared to their liking. The same fact was related to Vice by the biologist Patricio von Hildebrand, and the publication points out that hippo meat turns out to be a juicy dish that would not be out of place in the local diet.
In Africa, where it originates, the consumption of this animal is prohibited in countries like the Congo, which does not mean that its meat is trafficked. However, there is no quality control on the quality of the meat.
Neutering the Hippos
Another option would be to artificially sterilize the hippos. But to achieve this, the entire male population would have to be found, captured, and operated on. The dangers of getting close to a hippo are already well documented, but finding dozens of individuals in the wild, sterilizing them, and keeping track of any new births in the meantime would be a daunting task.
Due to the highly territorial nature of hippos, males in Colombia have spread farther to find undisputed territory. It is said that it was due to a man nicknamed "El Viejo", who controlled the Hacienda Nápoles, that Pepe left the ranch, which led to his death.
An earlier attempt to castrate them also revealed another problem: cost. A 2009 report claimed that a male hippopotamus had been captured, anesthetized and castrated as an experiment. The entire adventure cost $50,000, according to the Yale Politic.
The researchers also found another significant risk. Due to their size and body fat, hippos are difficult to anesthetize for long.
And the thought of a grumpy hippo waking up in the middle of extracting your family's jewelry might make this the worst idea of all.
