The notorious Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar once decorated his private zoo near Medellín with hippos from Africa. Meanwhile, the pachyderms, which multiplied uncontrollably after Escobar’s death, have become a real plague. Now 70 of the animals need to be resettled.
“The entire operation is expected to cost about $3.5 million,” owner of the Ostok Conservation Area in northern Mexico, Ernesto Zazueta, said Wednesday (local time). Ten of the giant pachyderms will be housed there.
The governor of the Colombian region of Antioquia wants to prevent the animals from being shot. 70 of the region’s nearly 150 hippos will be flown out to protected areas in India and Mexico in the coming months. The target is the first half of 2023, he said.
Animals became a plague for the population
The hippos are descended from the few specimens Escobar had flown in from Africa for his private zoo in the 1980s. After the powerful drug lord was killed in a police operation in 2013, the pachyderms were released. They have since populated an area around the Magdalena River, where authorities say they pose a threat to local wildlife and people living along the river.
Plans for sterilization collapsed
After plans to sterilize the hippos, which can weigh up to three tons, fell through, Colombian authorities last year finally declared them an “invasive” species, meaning they are also released for hunting.
In addition to the ten hippos that will find a new home in Mexico, there are plans to resettle another sixty hippos in a protected area in India. Zazueta said the animals would be flown first to India and then to Mexico.
Source: Krone
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