Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
‘COCAINE HIPPOS’ FACE CULL
Drug lord’s pets ‘pose danger’
DOZENS of hippos descended from a handful freed from Pablo Escobar’s zoo after he was shot dead 28 years ago could now meet the same fate.
When the drug lord was killed in 1993 the Colombian government took control of his estate, including his personal zoo.
Most of the animals were shipped away, but four hippos the cocaine chief had illegally imported were left to fend for themselves in a pond.
They bred in the wild around the town of Puerto Triunfo, becoming the world’s largest invasive species. There are now estimated to be 80 to 100 of them, rising about 10% a year and tipped to reach nearly 1,500 by 2040.
Unlike in their native Africa, they have no shortage of water in rainy Colombia, with ample food and no predators. Scientists believe this could have made the hippos more fertile.
Now they say the herd has become an ecological menace, competing with native wildlife and polluting local waterways. Hippo waste is toxic, and they carry dangerous bacteria that can harm other species, including humans. Ecologist Nataly Castelblanco-martínez said: “Nobody likes the idea of shooting a hippo, but we have to accept that no other strategy is going to work.”
Dozens of the hippos live in the lake near the amusement park built on the site of Escobar’s former mansion.
Gift shops in nearby Puerto Triunfo sell hippo souvenirs and there are warning signs on roads.
Environmentalists say they have tried to sterilise the hippos but it can take three months to track an individual.
The process is made more difficult by the fact that the males have retractable testes and the females’ reproductive organs are even harder to find.