ESCOBAR'S COCAINE HIPPOS

Throughout the last thirty years Colombia has done a remarkable job shedding itself from the infamous legacy of Pablo Escobar. I have visited twice and always felt safe. Indeed, you would be hard pressed to find a friendlier more welcoming lot than the Colombian people. But the most damning aspect of Escobar’s legacy has almost nothing to do with cocaine or mass murders. No, what has proven the most difficult remnant of Escobar’s reign is hippos. And while the terror of the Medellin Cartel has dissipated the ecological impact of the drug lord’s exotic pets remains a problem to both locals and the ecosystem. It is possible to see the rise and fall of Pablo Escobar as a tragedy of Greek proportions. A poor child from Rionegro left to learn the ways of the streets in the neighboring city of Medellin grows up to be one of the most powerful drug kingpins in the world building a palace of luxury (although, garish in style, quite frankly) fitting a man of both brutal violence and a cult of admiration, even if with reservations, that continues to this day. Hacienda Nápoles, as he christened his Neverland, was, if nothing else, the most bizarre museum hosting a mismatched assortment of oddities. Among the sites found were decommissioned military vehicles, abstract sculptures and…a zoo. But all dreams, including nightmares, come to an end and Escobar, the drug lord, killer, hero of the people, dreamer (?) was gunned down by Colombian special forces on December 2, 1993 and his estate systematically broken down. After a legal battle with Escobar’s relatives ended in 2006, the Colombian government took full control of the park and turned it into a full fledged amusement park. Although a smaller zoo has since reopened within, the original animals held in Escobar’s menagerie were donated to zoos and safari parks in the area before the case was even settled. All, of course, except the hippos. Notoriously difficult and often deadly to handle the four hippos that Escobar kept since the late 1970s were simply set free and established a colony in the nearby Magdalena River. By 2007 the population had grown to sixteen animals and in less than a decade numbered over a hundred. The immediate concern has always been for the locals. While as of yet no one has been killed or seriously injured by the hippos, the animals have cost ranchers a fortune with crop damage and even the death of cattle. Th real danger, however, will be environmental. Away from the Hacienda the hippos have found a paradise in the Magdalena where they can reproduce at an alarming rate. David Echeverri, a local biologist, explained, “The hippos took over the lake and made it their own. It offered everything they needed–food, security, and calm. They just didn’t know that they had the whole Magdalena Medio valley at their disposal.” In their native Africa, the main cause of death for hippos are draughts. In Colombia draughts are not a regular occurrence that toppled with the lack of predators ensures the hippo population thrives unchecked. This is proving disastrous for the local flora and fauna. Hippos consume and trample the surrounding vegetation, depraving native animals such as the West Indian manatee and Speckled caiman of their natural sustenance. Additionally, the defecation from hippos in the water has created high levels of cyanobacteria in the river, causing a threat to not only local plants but to such critically endangered species endemic to the river as the Dahl's toad-headed turtle and the Magdalena River turtle. By the late 2000s the Colombian government began to take its hippo problem seriously. The problems have been twofold. Ironically, the locals threatened by the hippos have come to see them as an icon of the area and attempts to cull the population have met with surprising pushback. As an alternative to culling the existing population castration has been attempted but this can cost up to $50,000 per animal rendering the method cost prohibitive. By 2020 Colombia’s hippo population was nearing 200 animals and the government was finding itself with the need to act quickly. In the fall of 2021 the government began a sterilization program using an anti-GnRH. The plan was fine-tuned and the government hopes to sterilize about forty hippos a year, creating a solid long-term solution. For a short-term effect a translocation plan was announced in March of 2023 in which roughly seventy hippos would be donated to zoos in India and Mexico. Releasing them back into their natural habitats in Africa was also considered but ultimately decided against as introduced hippos would disrupt the social structure of existing wild herds diminishing numbers in their native habitat (the hippopotamus is listed as a “vulnerable” species). Throughout it all, the Colombian government has not withdrawn its offer to anyone who wants to take the animals off its hands. The animals, such a taker can be assured, are free of charge. Somewhere some eccentric and perhaps unscrupulous millionaire must want them, but isn’t that how we got into this mess in the first place?