Fear and love surround drug kingpin’s hippos
Tucked between mountain ranges, the sprawling palace of Pablo Escobar was home to kangaroos, giraffes, elephants and other exotic animals — a private zoo of illegally imported animals that was the greatest ostentation of the feared drug kingpin as he reigned over the cocaine trade in Colombia.
Escobar and his Medellin Cartel are long dead, but one of the zoo’s prized specimens is flourishing in the tropical countryside and wetlands in and around the palace-turned-theme park — the hippopotamus. Like the man who introduced them to this country after obtaining them from a U.S. zoo, they are a source of endless controversy.
Government attempts to control their reproduction have had no real impact on population growth, with the number of hippos increasing in the last eight years from 35 to somewhere between 65 and 80.
A group of scientists is now warning that the hippos pose a major threat to the area’s biodiversity and could lead to deadly encounters between the huge animals and humans. They say hippo numbers could reach around 1,500 by 2035 if nothing is done.
They say some of the animals need to be killed.
“I believe that it is one of the greatest challenges of invasive species in the world,” said Nataly Castelblanco-Martínez, an ecologist at the University of Quintana Roo in Mexico and lead author of the group’s study.
The idea of killing some in the herd has already drawn
some criticism and is likely to see more. There was an outcry years ago when three hippos wandered from the Escobar compound and were causing problems and one was killed by hunters sent after the animals.
The humans in this rural area have embraced the hippos as their own, in part because of the tourist dollars they bring in. For outsiders, it can be a puzzling bond, considering the animals kill more people per year in Africa than any other wildlife species. Here, elementary school students are used to walking past a sign that reads “Danger — hippopotamus present.”
But the experts say the government’s attempt to keep down numbers by sterilizing some hippos just isn’t enough. “Everyone asks, ‘Why is this happening?’ Well, imagine a town of 50 people and you perform a vasectomy on one man and in two years on another man, obviously, that is not going to control the reproduction of the entire population,” Castelblanco-Martínez said.
The scientists began working on the hippo population forecast last year after
one of the animals chased and severely injured a poor farmer. Their study was published in the journal Biological Conservation in January.
Another study last year by researchers at the University of California, San Diego, found the hippos are changing the quality of the water in which they spend much of their time and defecate. As their population continues to grow, they could end up displacing native animals like the Antillean manatees, Castelblanco-Martinez said.
Escobar in the 1980s arranged for three female hippos and one male to be brought to his 5,500-acre estate, Hacienda Napoles. After his death in a shootout with authorities in 1993, most of the exotic animals were relocated or died. But the hippos were abandoned at the estate due to the cost and logistical issues associated with transporting 3-ton animals and the violence that plagued the area at the time.
The hippos thrive in the fertile region lying between Medellin and Colombia’s capital, Bogota. They live in the area around the Rio Magdalena — the Mississippi River of Colombia.
WASHI N GTON — Americans who go into the military understand the loss of personal liberty. Many of their daily activities are prescribed, as are their hairstyles, attire and personal conduct.
So when it comes to taking a coronavirus vaccine, many troops — especially younger enlisted personnel as opposed to their officers — see a rare opportunity to exercise free will.
“The Army tells me what, how and when to do almost everything,” said Sgt. Tracey Carroll, who is based at Fort Sill, a post in Oklahoma. “They finally asked me to do something and I actually have a choice, so I said no.”
Carroll, 24, represents a broad swath of members of the military — a largely young, healthy set of Americans from every corner of the nation — who are declin- ing to get the shot, which for now is optional among per- sonnel. They cite an array of political and health-related concerns.
But this reluctance among younger troops is a warning to civilian health officials about the potential hole in the broad-scale immunity that medical professionals say is needed for Americans to reclaim their col- lective lives.
“At the end of the day, our military is our society,” said Dr. Michael S. Weiner, the former chief medical officer for the Defense Depart- ment, who now serves in the same role for Maximus, a government contractor and technology company. “They have the same social media, the same families, the same issues that society at large has.”
Roughly one-third of troops on active duty or in the National Guard have declined to take the vaccine, military officials recently told Congress. In some places, such as Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the nation’s largest military installation, accep- tance rates are below 50%.
“We thought we’d be in a better spot in terms of the opt-in rate,” said Col. Joseph Buccino, a spokesman at Fort Bragg, one of the first military sites to offer the vaccine.
While Pentagon officials say they are not collecting specific data on those who decline the vaccine, there is broad agreement that refusal rates are far higher among younger members, and enlisted personnel are more likely to say no than officers. Military spouses appear to share that hesitation: In a December poll of 674 active-duty family members conducted by Blue Star Families, a military advo- cacy group, 58% said they would not allow their children to receive the vaccine.
For many troops, the reluctance reflects the con- cerns of civilians who have said in various public health polls that they will not take the vaccine. Many worry the vaccines are unsafe or were developed too quickly.
Some of the concerns stem from misinformation that has run rampant on Face- book and other social media, including the false rumor that the vaccine contains a microchip devised to monitor recipients, that it will permanently disable the body’s immune system or that it is some form of government control.
In some ways, vaccines are the new masks: a preventive measure against the virus that has been politicized.
There are many service members like Carroll, offi- cials said, who cite the rare chance to avoid one vaccine among the many required, especially for those who deploy abroad.
Young Americans who are not in the military, and who believe they do not need to worry about becoming seriously ill from the coronavirus, are likely to embrace their own version of defiance, especially in the face of confusing and at times contradictory information about how much protection the vaccine actually offers.
“I don’t think anyone likes being told what to do,” Weiner said. “There is a line in the American DNA that says, ‘Just tell me what to do so I know what to push back on.’”
The military has been offering the vaccine to older personnel, troops on the medical front lines, imme- diate response and contin- gency forces, some con- tractors who fall into those groups and some depen- dents of active-duty troops.
Hundreds of thousands of people in those categories have received shots so far.
The vaccine, unlike many other inoculations, is not required by the military at this time because it has been approved for emergency use by the Food and Drug Admin- istration. Once it becomes a standard, approved vaccine, the military can order troops to take the shot.
The prevalence of fear about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine has frustrated military officials.
“There is a lot of misinformation out there,” Robert Salesses, an acting assistant secretary of defense, told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. One member of the committee, Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., suggested that the military personnel who refused vaccines “risk an entire community” where bases are.
While military leaders insist that vaccine acceptance rates will rise as safety information continues to spread, officials and advocacy groups are scrambling to improve the rates, holding information sessions with health care leaders like Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. On some bases, health care workers follow up with those who refuse the vaccine to explore their reasons.
This past week, the Army held live sessions on Facebook with high-ranking officers to press the message that the vaccine was a boon, and hundreds of commenters balked throughout. “It has not been proven this vaccine saves lives,” one person wrote.
Staff Sgt. Jack Jay, who is stationed at an Army base at Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina, has heard every manner of fear, distrust and wild conspiracy theories from his peers — and has tried to gently share his own views.
“The reasons go from political, to the history of unproven research being carried out, and because of our age group and health we are not a high risk population of hospitalization,” said Jay, 33, who has already taken his shot.
“If one of my peers makes false statements as if they are true, I will challenge them.”