Lima Peru.- One of the most dangerous animals in Africa passes in front of a dozen onlookers on a street in the town of Doradal, in Colombia, where the hippos arrived at the whim of drug trafficker Pablo Escobar.
Sterilization, international transfers, hunting: all the possible solutions are on the table in the face of the dangerous “invasion” of some 160 animals that reproduce without control in that area of the department of Antioquia, in the northwest of the country.
The beast with enormous fangs and more than two tons walks freely and is now an attraction for thousands of tourists who come seduced by what was the extravagant hacienda of the cocaine baron.
After Escobar’s death at the hands of the Police during an escape attempt in 1993, the small herd of hippos that he had brought to his private zoo were left to fend for themselves in an area where food is plentiful and there are no large predators.
Today there are dozens of specimens, feared and adored alike in the region.
Hippo figures decorate the central park of the town, the facade of many businesses and others are sold as tourist souvenirs. There is also a traffic of pups that are offered as pets, it is rumored among residents.
Faced with what could be the largest herd of hippos outside of Africa, a “tragedy” is imminent, experts warn.
A few months ago, one of them interrupted a meeting of children and parents in the garden of the Balsora school, in a rural area of Doradal.
“Mums get very scared when they see an animal of this size (…) we perceive the danger and move to the classrooms,” Professor Dunia Arango, used to teaching with the guttural noise of hippos in the background, told AFP.
That time, the animal fed on the fruit trees that surround the school and then continued on its way to a market.
fierce and unpredictable
A new herd is consolidating in a small lake about 20 meters from the school, explained David Echeverri, an official with the local environmental authority (Cornare).
“There are about 35 children playing, they can get very close and cause a tragedy,” warns the expert. Behind his back, a family of three hippos move peacefully in the water without any kind of confinement.
“Although you see them very calm, at any time, in their unpredictable behavior, they can attack, as has already happened,” he adds.
On his side, the fisherman John Aristides (33 years old) remembers very well that afternoon in October 2021 when he threw his rod on the shore of a stream:
“When I stretched out my hand (…) (the hippopotamus) it jumped at me and hit me on the head with its lips,” recalls Aristides, who slipped in his flight and could not prevent the animal from biting his left arm.
“He squeezed me and threw me two meters away (…) he didn’t rip my arm off because he has very thick teeth,” adds the survivor who spent almost a month in the hospital.
“It is the closest thing to a fatal encounter in Colombia, but if we do nothing what awaits us are thousands of hippos wandering around,” anticipates Echeverri, who a couple of weeks ago buried one hit by a driver.
Shooting hunt?
Another fisherman, Álvaro Díaz (40), offers tourist tours to spot the heavy mammal on the banks of the Magdalena, the longest river in Colombia and where the presence of hippos expands.
When it notices them “annoying” it stays at about 30 meters, although sometimes it can be as close as ten.
“We see them very frequently (…) we live with them peacefully,” says Díaz in his canoe.
The corpulent fisherman advocates “population control” as a solution, with castrations and contraceptives.
La Cornare has tried both strategies, but according to Echeverri they were costly and ineffective.
Last year the Ministry of the Environment declared hippos an “invasive species”, opening the door to eventual hunting of this animal.
Echeverri notes that sacrificing them “without pain, with a technically correct methodology, is not easy either” since it involves capturing and sedating them to perform a kind of euthanasia.
An investigation by the state National University estimates that by 2035 the population could reach a thousand hippos and raises the possibility of their elimination with firearms, but Echeverri and neighbors reject it.
Derivatives to Zoos
In an effort to “save his life,” the Antioquia Governor’s Office revealed a plan earlier this year to transfer some 70 hippos to wildlife sanctuaries in Mexico and India. The only thing missing is the approval of authorities in Colombia and other countries.
Echeverri has already led the capture and shipment of seven specimens to zoos within the country and says that the plan is “possible and necessary.”
Biologists also warn that the invasion of these animals displaces local fauna, including the manatee, a herbivorous mammal that is on the list of threatened species of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The ranchers complain about the damage they cause, but the other residents have become fond of it.
“Don’t take them all. It is already our culture to live with them and having this population accompany us is nice ”, justifies Professor Arango, with an eye on her students.
