The Asian Reporter
Pacific Northwest News q Volume 33 Number 3 q March 6, 2023 q www.asianreporter.com
Colombia proposes shipping
invasive hippos to India, Mexico
OVERPOPULATION OPERATION. A hippo floats in the lagoon at Hacienda Napoles Park, once the private estate of drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, who decades ago imported three female hippos and one male in
Puerto Triunfo, Colombia, in this February 16, 2022 file photo. Colombia is proposing transferring at least 70 hippopotamuses that live near Escobar’s former estate to India and Mexico as part of a plan to control their population.
(AP Photo/Fernando Vergara, File)
Scientists warn the hippos do not have a natural
have spread far beyond the Hacienda Napoles ranch,
By Astrid Suárez
located 124 miles from Bogota along the Magdalena River. predator in Colombia and are a potential problem for
The Associated Press
Environmental authorities estimate there are about 130 biodiversity since their feces change the composition of
OGOTA, Colombia — Colombia is proposing
hippos in the area in Antioquia province and their the rivers and could impact the habitat of manatees and
transferring at least 70 hippopotamuses that live population could reach 400 in eight years.
capybaras. Last year, Colombia’s government declared
near Pablo Escobar’s former ranch — descendants
Escobar’s Hacienda Napoles — and the hippos — have them a toxic invasive species.
of four imported from Africa illegally by the late drug lord become a sort of local tourist attraction in the years since
The plan to take them to India and Mexico has been
in the 1980s — to India and Mexico as part of a plan to the kingpin was killed by police in 1993. When his ranch forming for more than a year, said Lina Marcela de los
control their population.
was abandoned, the hippos survived and reproduced in Ríos Morales, director of animal protection and welfare at
The hippos, which are territorial and weigh up to 3 tons, local rivers amid favorable climatic conditions.
Continued on page 13
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