Colombia's Invasive Hippos

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria, known popularly as Pablo Escobar, was a Colombian native who was born in 1949 in the Antioquia Province near Medellin.   During his lifetime Escobar was instrumental in forming the Medellin Drug Cartel and controlling the sale and distribution of vast amounts of cocaine around the globe.  Escobar eventually amassed a personal wealth of more that $30 billion through his drug-related criminal activities.   In 1993, just one day after his 43rd birthday, Escobar was gunned down and killed by Colombian federal police near where he had been born.

And while the life of Pablo Escobar is rightfully seen by many as the story of a repulsive drug dealer who ruined the lives of thousands of individuals, some of his exploits are legendary, and he is still seen by many Colombians as a local hero who brought an abundance of wealth and change to a once remote corner of the world.

One of the changes that Escobar brought to his native country occurred in the 1980's when he illegally imported four hippopotamuses from Africa to frolic in the Magdalena River, a waterway which connected Escobar's beautiful country estate, Hacienda Napoles, to the country's capital city of Bogota, 124 miles away.  After Escobar was killed a few years later, his ranch was abandoned and the hippos were left to survive on their own among a plentitude of lakes and rivers, and with climatic conditions that were exceptionally good for their survival and proliferation.

But the hippos did more than just survive in the ideal conditions, they flourished!  It is now estimated that there are at least 130 hippopotamuses in the area, all descendants of Escobar's original four, and they have become what the Colombian government is calling "an invasive species."  If left unchecked, the hippopotamus population could increase by another 80 or so in the next two years.

The feces that the hippos deposit in the local lakes and rivers change the composition the wateways and have adverse effects on other species which are indigenous to the area.

The government of Colombia is working frantically to curtail this latest outrage by a man who has been dead for over thirty years, and it has tentative plans to transfer most of Escobar's hippos, which are becoming a local tourist attraction, to Mexico and India.

That should make for an interesting round-up!