BOGOTA— An iconic female hippopotamus descended from the individuals that led to Colombia illegally drug lord Pablo Escobar died on Thursday after several months of needing medical attention, the Parque Hacienda Nápoles theme.
Vanessa, as she was christened by the theme park, had been suffering from “health problems” that were not specified by the park for some time. In a statement, it said that “until the end she was assisted by specialized medical personnel and her usual caregivers.”
The female hippo, who weighed 350 kilos and was more than 15 years old, had been raised individually outside of her herd because she was “expelled” from it, thus “becoming a pet of the park,” the statement added.
Hacienda Nápoles was owned by drug lord Pablo Escobar, who populated it with wild animals smuggled into the country in 1980 to form a private zoo in Puerto Triunfo, 200 kilometers from Bogotá. After Escobar was killed by police in 1993, the estate was taken over by the state and later leased to private owners who turned it into a theme park for tourists with a hotel and swimming pools.
Control protocols
Unlike Vanessa, who grew up in captivity, environmental authorities estimate that there are more than 169 hippos, which have expanded uncontrolled outside the estate’s lands, especially in the Magdalena River basin. If control measures are not taken, the population could reach 1,000 individuals in 2035.
To control the reproduction of hippos, which are native to Africa and considered an invasive species in Colombia, authorities are carrying out sterilizations and are designing a plan with other alternatives such as confinement and the possible transfer of dozens of specimens to countries such as India, Mexico and the Philippines, a process that has not yet begun pending protocols.
Source: With information from AP
