CNN
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Colombia plans to fly dozens of its “cocaine hippos” – the descendents of drug trafficker Pablo Escobar’s non-public menagerie – to new properties in India and Mexico in a bid to management their booming inhabitants, in accordance to the native governor.
There at the moment are between 130 and 160 of the hippos, in accordance to the Colombian authorities, and they’ve unfold out far past Escobar’s former ranch of Hacienda Napoles, the place they started as a inhabitants of only one male and three females.
The unique hippos had been a part of a set of unique animals Escobar had amassed within the 1980s at his ranch about 250 kilometers (155 miles) from Medellín. After his demise in 1993, authorities relocated a lot of the different animals, however not the hippos – as a result of they had been too difficult to transport.
But they’ve since begun to reproduce quickly, extending their attain alongside the Magdalena River basin, and they now pose an environmental problem and are regarding close by residents, authorities say.
A examine within the journal Nature warned their numbers may balloon to 1,500 inside twenty years.
Previously, authorities have tried to management their inhabitants utilizing castrations and “shots” of contraceptive darts. But the contraceptive drives have had restricted success.
Now there’s a plan to switch 70 of the hippos to pure sanctuaries in India and Mexico, the governor of Antioquia province, the place Hacienda Napoles is positioned, mentioned in a Tweet.
A complete of 70 hippos, a mixture of males and females, are anticipated to be moved – with 60 going to India and 10 to Mexico.
The technical time period for this operation is “translocating,” governor Aníbal Gaviria defined in an interview with the Colombian outlet Blu Radio, as it might contain shifting the hippos from one nation that was not their native habitat to one other that was additionally not their pure habitat.
The objective was “to take them to countries where these institutions have the capacity to receive them, and to (home) them properly and to control their reproduction,” Gaviria mentioned.
Sending the hippos again to their homeland of Africa was “not allowed,” Gaviria mentioned.
Sending the hippos again to Africa risked doing extra hurt than good, for each the hippos themselves and the native ecosystem, María Ángela Echeverry, professor of Biology on the Javeriana University, beforehand explained to CNN.
“Every time we move animals or plants from one place to the other, we also move their pathogens, their bacteria and their viruses. And we could be bringing new diseases to Africa, not just for the hippos that are out there in the wild, but new diseases for the entire African ecosystem that hasn’t evolved with that type of disease,” Echeverry mentioned.
Aside from decreasing the variety of hippos in Colombia, authorities are hoping to find out how to handle the remaining inhabitants, that are acknowledged as a possible vacationer attraction.
The hippos will probably be flown in purpose-built packing containers, Gaviria mentioned within the radio interview, and won’t be sedated at first.
But “emergency sedation” is feasible if one of many animals is overcome by nerves in the course of the flight, he added.
The translocation may very well be accomplished by the primary half of this yr if vital permits are expedited, particularly from the Colombian Agricultural Institute, Gaviria mentioned.
Hippos are seen by some as an invasive species that may pose a hazard to native ecosystems and typically even to people.
Research has highlighted the unfavorable results hippo waste can have on oxygen ranges in our bodies of water, which might have an effect on fish and finally people.
Nature journal cited a 2019 paper that discovered lakes the place hippos had been current had extra cyanobacteria, that are related to poisonous algae. These blooms can cut back water high quality and trigger mass fish deaths, affecting native fishing communities.
Hippos may also pose a risk to agriculture and to folks’s security, in accordance to a Biological Conservation study printed in 2021. Hippos can eat or injury crops and have interaction in aggressive interactions with people.
“Hippos live in herds, they are quite aggressive. They are very territorial and are plant eaters in general,” mentioned Professor Echeverry.
While the “cocaine hippos” are usually not native to Colombia, the native terrain is believed to be favorable for his or her copy, because it has shallow water sources and a big focus of meals.
Until now, Colombia has not been ready to clear up an issue that – within the phrases of Gaviria to Blu Radio – “got out of control.”
Whether the most recent efforts will succeed the place contraception efforts failed stays to be seen.