Pablo Escobar's feral 'cocaine hippos' face being culled to stop them breeding

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The descendants of Pablo Escobar's hippos could be a threat to the environment Credit: CNN

The descendants of Pablo Escobar’s “cocaine hippos” are facing a cull to stop them multiplying and threatening the environment.

What started as one male and three females - illegally imported into Colombia in the 1980s to join the drug kingpin’s private zoo – has since grown to a population of 169.

With no natural predators, the invasive species is expected to keep on reproducing, potentially causing serious damage to the ecosystem of the South American country.

Scientists have said the hippos could pose a potential problem for biodiversity since their faeces change the composition of the rivers and could impact the habitat of manatees and capybaras.

Colombia’s minister of environment and sustainable development Susana Muhamad said the population could boom to “1,000 individuals by 2035” unless “strong measures” are taken.

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Colombian environment minister Susana Muhamad held a press conference in Bogota on Thursday to discuss the hippo problem Credit: CNN

There are three ways the government plans to do this: Sterilisation, relocation and “ethical euthanasia,” CNN reports.

Ms Muhamad added: “All three strategies have to work together. Here we are in a race against time in terms of the permanent environmental and ecosystem impacts that are being generated and that is why we cannot say that only one strategy is effective for our objective, which is to control the population.”

After Escobar’s death in 1993, authorities relocated most of the animals from the drug lord’s collection of exotic creatures.

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However, they did not move the so-called “cocaine hippos” as they were too difficult to transport, and they were left unattended, allowing their numbers to flourish.

There have since been attempts to castrate some of the hippos, or put them on birth control, but they were not successful in stopping the semiaquatic mammals from breeding.

In a statement, Colombia’s Ministry of Environment said it was considering plans to relocate as many as 60 hippos to India, and potentially others to the Philippines and Mexico.

It added that sterilisation would cost an average of 40 million pesos (£8,100) per animal – starting next week with the aim of sterilising 40 per week.

Earlier this year a sanctuary owner said an operation to transport 70 hippos to India and Mexico would cost Colombia $3.5million.

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