Removing 70 of Pablo Escobar’s hippos from former ranch could cost Colombia $3.5m
Removing 70 hippos that belonged to the late drug lord Pablo Escobar to overseas sanctuaries could cost Colombia $3.5million.
Colombia is proposing transferring the hippopotamuses that live near Pablo Escobar’s former ranch - descendants of four imported from Africa illegally by the late drug lord in the 1980s – to India and Mexico as part of a plan to control their population.
The hippos, which are territorial and weigh up to three tons, have spread far beyond the Hacienda Napoles ranch, located 200km (124 miles) from Bogota along the Magdalena River.
Escobar’s Hacienda Napoles - and the hippos - have become a local tourist attraction in the years since the kingpin was killed by police in 1993.
When his ranch was abandoned, the hippos survived and reproduced in local rivers and favourable climatic conditions.
Environmental authorities estimate there are about 130 hippos in the area in Antioquia province and their population could reach 400 in eight years.
Scientists warn the hippos do not have a natural predator in Colombia and are a potential problem for biodiversity since their faeces change the composition of the rivers and could impact the habitat of manatees and capybaras.
Last year, Colombia’s government declared them a toxic invasive species.
The plan to take the hippo's to India and Mexico has been forming for more than a year, said Lina Marcela de los Ríos Morales, director of animal protection and welfare at Antioquia’s environment ministry.
However, it has now been revealed the mammoth task could cost millions of dollars.
"The whole operation should cost around $3.5 million," Ernesto Zazueta, owner of the Ostok Sanctuary, told AFP.
The hippos would be lured with food into large, iron containers and transferred by truck to the international airport in the city of Rionegro, 150 kilometers away.
The plan is to send 60 hippos to the Greens Zoological Rescue & Rehabilitation Kingdom in Gujarat, India, which De los Ríos Morales said would cover the cost of the containers and airlift.
Another 10 hippos would go to zoos and sanctuaries in Mexico such as the Ostok, located in Sinaloa.
In 2009 it tried culling the animals but stopped after a graphic photo caused national outrage.
A sterilisation programme remains in place but the hippos breed faster than local experts can find, catch and castrate them.
The relocations would help control the hippo population, and though the animals’ native habitat is Africa, it is more humane than the alternate proposal of exterminating them as an invasive species, said De los Ríos Morales.
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