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BOGOTA, Colombia – Drug lord Pablo Escobar gained worldwide fame for the cocaine he smuggled out of Colombia.
What is less known is what he smuggled in. In the late 1970s, billionaire Medellín Cartel Kingpin acquired four hippos, reportedly from Africa or the United States, to go with the elephants, giraffes and antelopes at the private zoo on his estate in western Colombia.
When Escobar surrendered to authorities in 1991, the government confiscated his Hacienda Nápoles property — and let the animals roam free.
In the 30 years since, the original hippos – three females and one male – have multiplied to over 130. Hippos are not native to South America. With no natural predators, the aggressive, territorial animals have made their home in the Magdalena River in central Colombia.
Now the voracious herbivores devour plants, crowd out native animals, pollute soil and water, and threaten humans. (Hippos are among the most dangerous animals in the world capable of killing a human with a single bite, which accounts for an estimated 500 deaths each year.)
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You’ve heard of Cocaine Bear, the 500-pound Georgia black bear who overdosed on Colombian powder thrown from a drug smuggler’s plane? These are Escobar’s cocaine hippos: bigger, more numerous, more deadly. The Department of Environment here last year labeled them an “invasive species” and banned their propagation and commercialization. But the debate over whether to conserve them or kill them goes back decades.
For some here, the big mammals have become quirky, mischievous folk heroes. But “just wait and see,” said David Echeverri of the regional environment agency Cornare. “Once they start attacking and killing people, everything will change.”
If the invasive species is left alone, the population could reach 600 by 2040.
Now authorities say they have a solution.
Authorities in Colombia’s Antioquia department, home to both Medellín and Escobar’s estate, plan to capture about 70 of the animals and send them to sanctuaries in India and Mexico.
60 are to be flown to the Greens Zoological Rescue and Rehabilitation Center in Gujarat, India. The rest will go to the Ostok Sanctuary in Mexico. Ecuador, the Philippines and Botswana are lined up for future deliveries.
(Escobar was being held in the private prison, which was built to his specifications under a deal with the government to avoid extradition to the United States. The facility, dubbed the Cathedral, reportedly included a bar, soccer field and telescope, so the drug lord could see his daughter at their home in Medellín while they spoke on the phone. He left the facility in 1992 and was shot dead by national police the following year.)
Planning for the hippo relocation began a year and a half ago when Sara Jaramillo, an entrepreneur here who works in animal welfare, asked the Ostok Sanctuary in Culiacán, Mexico, which is home to around 400 animals, including deer and jaguars, if they could may be interested in including some of them.
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“We started looking for resources and taking precautions,” said Ernesto Zazueta, president of Ostok Sanctuary. “Not everyone is willing to transfer and keep them.”
Zazueta said his organization is preparing a facility to keep the 10 hippos out of the public eye. They would not be released, he said: “Otherwise what happened in Colombia would happen in Mexico.”
Effective ways to solve the hippo problem have proven elusive. In 2009, the government gave the go-ahead for a “controlled hunt” for a few animals. Federico Pfeil-Schneider, an experienced hunter escorted by the military, killed one.
Then the photo of his carcass surrounded by proud soldiers caused outrage. Fans called it Pepe; some mourned the loss.
At this point the population was fewer than three dozen. But the politicians dallyed and the numbers exploded.
A decade ago, Echeverri started a sterilization program. To date, 13 hippos have been spayed and five relocated to local zoos.
“Are we counting these numbers as a success?” he thought. “Well, catching and neutering them is so complex, so dangerous and takes so long that the answer should be yes. But it is not an effective measure.”
Female hippos can give birth to a calf every two years. The population reproduces faster than individuals have been sterilized.
In the last two years, Cornare has added another approach: the chemical contraceptive GonaCon, provided by the US government. It is used on both men and women with a dart gun.
Last year they gave it to 38 hippos — but they have no idea which ones.
“Finding them is a titanic task,” Echeverri said. Cornare has tried tagging them with paint, satellite tags, and collars, but the hippos somehow managed to remove them all. This year, the agency plans to load the darts with tattoo ink.
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Shipping the hippos abroad will be expensive. Zazueta of the Mexican Sanctuary also acted as a link between Colombia and the Indian Sanctuary. He said the authorities will charter cargo planes from the Belarusian company Rada Airlines that can transport 20 to 30 hippos. A flight to Mexico could cost $400,000; to India it will be $900,000.
Each hippopotamus is said to be housed in a special wooden box that could cost up to $10,000. Caring for one person costs about $2,500 a month.
“The resources for all of this come from Mexico and India,” Zazueta said. He said they were concerned about the welfare of the animals; that they are the descendants of Escobar’s pets is nothing special.
An Argentine documentary filmmaker will film the entire process.
Lina de los Ríos, a spokeswoman For the regional government, this is a “valuable strategy to conserve these animals as we do not believe that eradicating them is the right solution”.