After the cheetahs from Namibia, it is now the turn of Colombia's hippopotamuses to be relocated to India. Known as 'cocaine hippos', these animals have a story of their own—they once belonged to deceased cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar. According to reports, there are now over 130 hippos; 60 of which are set to be relocated to a facility in India. A report by Livemint stated that these will be brought to the Greens Zoological Rescue and Rehabilitation Kingdom in Gujarat. Ten of them are headed to a new home in Ostok sanctuary in Mexico.
Colombia's hippo menace
Colombia has been struggling to tackle the invasion of the country's main river basin by this group of hippos, with scientists calling it an 'ecological time-bomb'. In the 1980s, drug lord Escobar brought a few exotic animals, including four hippopotamuses to his luxury ranch in Colombia. After his death in 1993, most of the animals were moved to the zoos. But not the hippos, due to the difficulty in transportation. An adult hippo can weigh between 1 – 4.5 tonnes.
However, the animals escaped from the ranch and started roaming freely in the marshy area near the Magdalena river basin. As these animals made the marsh their new home, there was a population boom due to absence of any natural predators in the region. The numbers are now estimated to be around 130-160—the largest population of hippopotamuses outside Africa. A study in the journal Nature had warned their numbers could balloon to 1,500 by 2034.
Over the years, these semi-aquatic giants have wreaked havoc in the areas surrounding the basin—jeopardising the river ecosystem and also attacking the local people. The large number of hippos concentrated in the area also means a huge quantity of excrement which poisons the river water, leading to the death of aquatic organisms. A CNN reported also highlighted that hippo waste also affects the oxygen levels in the water bodies—thereby affecting fishes and the local fishing communities too.
While Colombia attempted sterilisation measures in the 2000s, the programme was not entirely successful owing to the size of the animals and their aggressive nature. With time running out, the environment ministry declared hippos as 'invasive species' and proposed culling—a decision that led to public outcry and divided opinion even among the scientific community.
The hippo transfer plan may seem like a feasible idea, but it comes at a hefty cost of about $3.5 million. Reports stated that the giants will be lured in with food into large, iron containers and then transferred by truck to the international airport, from where they will be flown to India and Mexico.