In the 1980s, the Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, decided to import into the country three hippos, two females and one male. That decision generated an environmental problem that, to this day, generates lags in Colombia. The most recent incident involving these animals occurred in the last few hours when a driver crashed into one of them on the highway. Medellin-Bogota. A studio commissioned by the Ministry of Environmentand advanced by the Humboldt Institute and the National Universityindicates that these animals should begin to be hunted.
The document in which that hypothesis is exposed, carried out by 28 researchers from the Humboldt Institutehe ICN of the National University and the Regional Autonomous Corporation of the Negro Rivers and Nare (Cornare), details that within the five tasks of management, control and eradication of the hippopotamus in Colombia is control hunting. What is explained is that this action can be physical or chemical. The first of these involves gunshots or concussions, and the second with the injection of drugs. Control hunting, explains the document 170 pageswould be the shortest control technique.
The hunting method is added to the translocation method; lockdown; early warnings and social intervention. The one mentioned at the top of the list details that animals can be moved to zoos or ‘native range wild populations’, for example, Africa. Confinement, on the other hand, refers to the isolation of animals to areas where they would remain for their remaining years of life.
Early warnings, in turn, have to do with the organization of information brigades to explain to the communities the situation surrounding this invasive species in the country; and social intervention to take actions within these spaces such as the signaling of spaces or the creation of a network of lookouts.
Representatives of the Government of Antioquia, the Regional Autonomous Corporation of the Negro and Nare River Basins (Cornare), the SantuColombian Agricultural Institute and the Ministry of Environment ario Ostok and the US production company RPM signed an agreement on Wednesday March 29 to implement the necessary strategies to control the environmental situation surrounding the presence of hippos in Magdalena Medio. With this agreement, it is intended to guarantee the transfer of ten of these animals from Colombia to Mexico, and another 60 to India.
According to what was reported by the governor of Antioquia, Aníbal Gaviria, and Lina Marcela de los Ríos, manager of Animal Welfare, it will be within a period of two months that a list with the requirements for the transport of specimens of this African species. These documents, among other things, will show that the animals are dewormed and that they have gone through quarantine.
With this, an approval will be made with what the international authorities demand in what has to do with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, those norms and regulations that are in charge of guaranteeing and regulating that there is no traffic of species. As explained by the Colombian Agricultural Institute (ICA) “the homologation of protocols of our country and other destinations is being advanced to comply with sanitary requirements to make the transfer.”
As previously stated, in order to carry out this operation, resources amounting to 3.5 million dollars are necessary. This was commented by Ernesto Zazueta, owner ofthe Ostok Shrine in northern Mexico.
Wednesday, March 29, was the day on which an overflight was carried out over the area where the corrals will be set up in which the hippos will be captured and later mobilized. These animals will be taken to those structures thanks to fattening processes. After that they will be subjected to controlled confinement. The flight in which They will be taken to their new habitat. It will cost two million dollars.
“Here we are in the search to save the lives of the hippos, but also to protect the lives of people in Magdalena Medio (…) it is a risk to the tranquility and lives of people,” Zazueta commented on the situation. . It is worth remembering that this long and costly process is the result of actions committed by the late Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, who brought the first copies to Colombia.
In the late 1970s, the billionaire boss of the Medellín Cartel bought four hippos to accompany the elephants, giraffes and antelopes he kept at the zoo. deprived of his farm in western Colombia.
Zazaueta commented that what is being sought is “to lower the population of young people (hippos) in order to lower the growth rate (…) The idea is to be able to cut straight to lower the population, something radical was needed.” “We are all looking for the same thing: to preserve ecosystems, of our average Magdalena, and to protect life from hippos, which when they were introduced and found a habitat that welcomed them (…) were not the culprits (…) they reached a number of individuals that requires a comprehensive intervention,” added Lina Marcela de los Ríos, manager of Protection and Animal Welfare of the Government of Antioquia.
According to what the newspaper revealed The viewerthe money to achieve the relocation of the animals will be provided, for the most part, by the American producer RPMwhose productions include beauty pageants such as Miss United States.
