Colombia is looking to transpose up to 70 of Pablo Escobar ’s famoushipposout of the country as they continue to damage the local ecosystem and rapidly grow in population , according toCBS News . All descended from just four hippos that the drug lord spell from Africa in the eighties , the hippos were too unmanageable to view and official thought they would die in the unfamiliar home ground .
Instead , the experimental condition proved perfect for the hippos , which have no prescribed predators and are highly territorial . Thirty years later , the 130 - strong population roam Colombia and are considered one of the topinvasive speciesin the man . The government and scientists have been considering their fortune for geezerhood . Conservationists are concerned about theecological damagethey are doing to Colombia ’s Magdalena River basin , and last year the Colombian government announce them an invading metal money .
Colombian sanction decidedback in 2009to wipe out them off , trigger off an shout , and the design never quite get off the earth , though it has since picked up speed . Colombian lawyer Luis Domingo Gómez Maldonadofiled a lawsuitin 2020 on the Hippo ’ behalf to save them from being euthanized , instead suggest sterilisation . Colombian officials agreed , and the plan to utilize chemic contraceptive method to sterilize a portion of the main population started but has since been stillborn .
Now , the administration plans to take a unlike approach and carry the Hippopotamus amphibius off to India and Mexico to assure the rise population . The animals would be contain within sanctuaries and zoos , where they can live without harm ecosystem as an invading species .
Some hippos live within the spread and are contain within its walls , so would not be withdraw , while others have since spread to the surround areas and would be count for movement . official believe it is more humane than simply exterminating them , and many countries have since expressed interest in taking some of the hippos .
Interestingly , Escobar ’s Hippo are the only animal in the worldlegally considered humansby the US after advocates argued for the use of a unlike sterilisation drug last yr . It should n’t have any impact on plans for their control , but it is freakish that the only one to be successful in this are the illicitly imported “ cocain hippos ” .
