Bogota: It is reported that the famous ‘cocaine hippos’ that are causing headaches in the Latin American country of Colombia are being planned to be transferred to India and Mexico. The famous Colombian drug mafia boss Pablo Escobar once shook the world. These people are descendants of hippopotamus!
The local government is planning to rehabilitate around 70 hippos. They are a threat to the natural habitat of the area and have kept the authorities awake for years. The authorities are not able to control their number. There are no other species in Colombia that have the potential to pose a threat. Last year, the government included them in the ‘Invasive Species’ list.
It refers to organisms that invade and multiply from another area, threatening species in one area. These species are a threat to many native species.
Lina Marcela de los Rios Morales, director of the Animal Protection and Welfare Department at the Antioquia Environment Ministry, says the government is in talks to rehabilitate them in India and Mexico. India and Mexico have not responded on the issue. The plan is to transfer 60 of the 70 hippos to Green’s Zoological Rescue and Rehabilitation Kingdom in Gujarat.
Morales also says that India is ready to bear the cost of the containers to airlift them. Ten will be moved to zoos or sanctuaries, including Ostoc in Sinaloa, Mexico. Morales added that Ecuador, the Philippines and Botswana have also expressed interest in acquiring them.
Arrival of hippos
In the 70s and 80s, the Medellin Cartel, a mafia organization controlled by Pablo Escobar, controlled 80 percent of the drug trade in the United States. Escobar smuggled four hippos from Africa to Colombia in the 1980s. It was Escobar who brought the hippos found in Africa to the South American continent.
Three of them were female and one was male. These hippos were raised by Escobar at his private zoo at Hacienda Naples in Puerto Triunfo, 100 kilometers from Medellin, Colombia.
After Escobar was killed in 1993, the estate was seized by the Colombian government. The hippos were later abandoned. Descendants of the Hippo gang of four Today there are 130 in the province of Antioquia alone. It is expected to reach 400 in eight years.
They live on the banks of the Magdalena River and often attack humans. The overpopulation of these invasive species is bad for the ecosystem here, but their sterilization is being done, but there is practical difficulty. Many people want to kill them.
Dangerous people
Hippos are known to attack humans when given the opportunity. Very dangerous. It is estimated that approximately 500 people are killed by hippos in Africa every year. Hippos mainly attack those who enter their territory. Although they may seem harmless, hippos are one of the most threatened creatures to humans.
