New cards are on the table as to what’s to come for the hippos descended from the hippos carried by extinct Medellín Cartel boss Pablo Escobar in the 1980s. These include sterilization and “ethical euthanasia,” as declared by Colombia’s Environment Minister.

This week, as announced on November 2, 2023, the sterilization of one of the hippos living in the country should begin “and with it begin the management plan established to control this population, which will not only undergo sterilizations – 40 per year, but also with transfer and ethical euthanasia,” EFE reported.

Ethical euthanasia for some of the 166 hippos was addressed by Environment Minister Susana Muhamad, who published Semana.

In April 2022, the EFE agency said that the animals that “illegally arrived in Colombia in 1984 for the zoo that drug trafficker Pablo Escobar set up on his farm in the center of the country have reproduced uncontrollably and pose a “concerning” environmental problem. for the authorities and residents of the area.”

After thirteen months, the government of Antioquia, represented by Aníbal Gaviria, announced the transfer of 60 hippos to Mexico last March, El Universo reported. India was one of the other destinations analyzed.

India and Mexico are believed to be the destinations of at least 60 Pablo Escobar hippos

The idea of ​​euthanasia is not new. For 2021, a study published in El Universo, citing the January issue of the journal Biological Conservation, recommended that the hippos be “sacrificed to avoid long-term negative effects,” but other scientists suggested a castration program.

The EFE agency reported two years ago that environmental authorities successfully developed the first immunocastration trial for hippos living in Colombia’s Magdalena Medio region.

Hippos, one hot potato

Colombia’s Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, Susana Muhamad, indicated last week that “for the rest of the year, the forecast is to sterilize 20 hippos, with the aim of sterilizing 40 per year from 2024.”

According to EFE, “each sterilization costs 40 million pesos (over $9,800) and is a “complex and expensive” operation.

The process can take between six and seven hours – when it comes to females, it is more complicated, according to experts – and entails risks both for the animals, due to anesthesia or complications leading to their death, and for the experts who conduct the research. process.” “Mohamad expanded into the media.

Sterilization alone cannot control the population, Muhamad said, according to EFE.

Pablo Escobar’s hippos: a “concerning” environmental problem for Colombian authorities

The ministry has a studied and sophisticated offer from India to take 60 hippos – and also ‘ethical euthanasia’. The minister reported that a public consultation is open for the protocol on this matter.

“None of the three (strategies) are effective on their own,” but it is important that they are implemented simultaneously, the minister explains. “Euthanasia would eventually be applied to some individuals,” Semana reported.

Others will be sent to Mexico, India or the Philippines, which were open to receiving copies. The government is still processing the necessary permits for the transfers.

cocaine hippos

They also call these heavy animals ‘cocaine hippos’ and in 2022 the government declared them ‘an invasive species’.

Pablo Escobar’s hippos: another evil legacy that threatens to destroy Colombia’s social and ecological stability

They were two female hippos and a male when the drug trafficker took them to Colombia on a private plane from Rionegro airport and took them to the Hacienda, El País reported on March 4.

After Escobar’s death in 1993, they managed to escape from the hacienda ‘Nápoles’ until they settled on the Magdalena River.

In April 2023, a traffic accident occurred when one of those animals escaped from the grounds of Pablo Escobar’s former Hacienda Nápoles. A truck hit him and the animal was run over and killed on the Medellín highway.

“We are trying to control the population expansion and keep them in closed centers,” the senior official said last week.

The strange sculptures of hippos with the head of Pablo Escobar that a Colombian artist made in protest against the legacy of drug trafficking

For Nicolás Escobar, cousin of the extinct capo, quoted in El Español, he did not agree with the sacrifice of the hippos. “They should respect their lives because they are not responsible for what happened. We must use these animals for tourism (…) those hippos already have their own Colombian DNA,” he said.

The ministry’s idea is that, as EFE explains, “if they stop reproducing, over time they will naturally become extinct in the country, especially because “we are in a race against time in terms of environmental impact and the ecosystem.”

(JO)