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Hippos in Colombia: the difficulty of castrating, relocating or eradicating them

2021-02-22T19:25:52.025Z


The hippo population in Colombia has increased in recent years and experts consider them a danger to the local ecosystem.


They propose to sacrifice the hippos of Pablo Escobar 1:20

(CNN Spanish) -

Almost three decades after his death, Pablo Escobar's footprint is still alive in Colombia, this time with a problem that has nothing to do with drugs or drug trafficking: invasive hippos that endanger local ecosystems, native species and in extreme cases, the local population.

Experts have said that it is necessary to eradicate this species to end this problem.

The hippo population in Colombia has grown exponentially in recent decades, due to the lack of controls to prevent their reproduction, the lack of limits for their mobility and the difficulty of relocating them to other places such as zoos or even returning them to Africa, where the species originates from.

In January, in a study published in the journal Biological Conservation, experts recommended that the between 65 and 80 hippos that are currently estimated to be in the region be euthanized to avoid negative effects in the long term, but also to prevent them from continuing to reproduce due to that the habitat favors their survival.

How did the hippos get to Colombia?

In the 1980s, Pablo Escobar imported a male and three female hippopotamus to join his collection of wild animals as part of the private zoo at the famous Hacienda Napoles, located in Puerto Triunfo, in the department of Antioquia, in the Magdalena area. Means, medium.

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Upon their death, other species of exotic animals were relocated, but the hippos stayed because they were difficult to capture and transport, according to the study.

Hippos soon began to spread around, but government efforts to euthanize them were halted after a public outcry involving a hippo named Pepe, and for which a judge ruled in favor of banning the hunting of these animals in 2012. .

These are the problems:

  • The 'cocaine hippos,' which Pablo Escobar brought to Colombia, must be euthanized, scientists say, but not everyone agrees

Neutering All Hippos: Mission Impossible

In February of this year, Cornare (Corporación Autónoma Regional de las Cuencas de los Rios Negro and Nare) and the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development asked the United States Embassy for their «support for the acquisition of the drug GonaCon, a product that would allow the immunocastration of hippos "and which, according to the environmental agency," is the most viable alternative contemplated by the veterinarians and biologists of Cornare, for the control of these animals in the country. "

According to Cornare, who is the territory's environmental authority, the Ministry of the Environment “undertook to study the possibility of declaring hippos as an invasive species, constructing a management plan for the species ... and accompanying the National Government's strategy of Cornare for the control of the overflowing growth of these animals in Colombia ».

But this strategy, one of those that is being considered, may not be a solution at all, according to experts.

"Castrating a hippopotamus is more or less the equivalent of castrating an elephant," María Ángela Echeverry, a professor of biology at the Javeriana University who has studied the subject, told CNN.

"That limits the growth of the population, but we maintain the problem of having them in their ecosystems where they are currently generating an impact."

Neutering may prevent them from reproducing, but it is not a solution for the current overpopulation of animals.

«For us they are processes that work to a certain extent, because first you have to go out to find them ..., actively search for them, chase them can be for days, capture them, immobilize them, carry out an entire operative procedure to - in the case of a physical castration - do the surgery in the field, or in the case of a chemical castration, we can place the chemical and know that the drug was effective, "Germán Jiménez, a professor in the Department of Biology at the Javeriana University, who has investigated for 14 years, told CNN the topic.

In addition, there are the high economic costs: for each animal this procedure could be around US $ 3,000, according to a report by the Alexander von Humboldt Biological Resources Research Institute, which is dedicated to scientific research on biodiversity.

Hippos damage Colombia's ecosystems

Several experts agree that eradicating these animals would be the best solution, but with an ongoing court order prohibiting their hunting, it is not possible to do so.

And these mammals are affecting local ecosystems.

"By not being natives of the country, they are affecting the system where they are today," Echeverry said.

“But also due to their ecological characteristics, they are beginning to alter the dynamics that exist within rivers and river beds.

Hippos live in packs, they are quite aggressive.

They are very territorial and are consumers of plants in general.

This gives us the result that those hippos in the Magdalena are altering the ecological dynamics of the system where it is found, "he added.

According to the Humboldt Institute, "the fishing activity in the Magdalena River is at risk and there is concern because its feces contaminate the waters and its trampling is a source of degradation and erosion."

"We have contaminated aquatic ecosystems, deteriorated terrestrial ecosystems and as we have more animals, more deterioration", said Jiménez.

"In many of the bodies of water, where the hippos are, their physical-chemical conditions are changing," he said.

So species of fauna - such as turtles, frogs, and even manatees, a species native to the region - are being affected as well as flora.

According to Jiménez, a deterioration of native ecosystems would mean a significant loss of biodiversity.

"Absolutely everyone on this planet lives off biodiversity: due to the good state of the rivers, the good state of the soils, the good state of the climate, all this depends on the good state of biodiversity," he added.

  • They present a hippopotamus calf born in captivity in El Salvador

Why not return them to Africa or take them to zoos?

This is a not-so-feasible possibility due not only to the costs associated with taking dozens of hippos to other places, but because they do not belong anywhere else, since they have been developed in Colombia and, according to Echeverry, it is not known to science certain where these animals were brought from.

"You don't know much about where they came from," Echeverri said.

"We don't know if they are really individuals that were originally in the wild in Africa, or if they were individuals that were already, for example, in captivity somewhere else."

In addition, taking them to another habitat would be risky since not only would the animals be transported, but their pathogens would be transported and the animals would be removed from the environment in which they have developed.

“Every time we move animals or plants from one place to another, we also move their pathogens, their bacteria and their viruses.

And we could be bringing new diseases to Africa, or not only for the hippos that are there in the wild, but new diseases for the entire African ecosystem that has not evolved with this type of disease, "he added.

And taking them to zoos is unlikely due to the number of animals that there are and the high costs derived from their maintenance.

Hunt them down and eradicate them, a huge job

David Echeverri López, head of forests and biodiversity at the regional environmental agency Cornare, told CNN last month that the situation is delicate.

"The option to kill them has always been on the table," he said.

"However, it is very difficult to imagine that this could happen at this time."

Furthermore, it could only be done with some hippos because it is "practically impossible" to find, relocate or sterilize them.

Professor Echeverry, from La Javeriana, agrees that these animals must be eradicated.

“In practical terms, that is quite complicated and we could have in some places still, maybe two or three places where we can transport and house some of their individuals.

But if we really want to eradicate the problem, we need to eradicate the source of the problem, "he told CNN.

In addition, according to Jímenez, the hippos, which he calls a "charismatic species," became a source of income for some locals as many tourists go to visit them.

The solution?

“The idea is that we have to control these populations.

We have to physically remove individuals from there and (…) do population control, ”he says.

«In the future, who goes to the Magdalena River to look for a hippopotamus?».

Why do they keep playing at such speed?

Hippos are in highly favorable terrain for their reproduction, since the Magdalena Medio area is rich in shallow water sources and has a great concentration of food around them.

Unlike the African savanna where there are seasonal variations and there are strong periods of drought that affect these animals, in the Magdalena Medio they always have water.

“In the ecosystem in which [hippos] are found right now and towards Magdalena Medio, there are large extensions of grasslands, native grasses or low vegetation, which is exactly what they consume.

And if there always is, then there is always energy to reproduce ", said the researcher from La Javeriana.

The danger is that, as the study says, these hippos continue to reproduce at an unimaginable speed and that in a few years there will no longer be dozens, but hundreds, that not only are in the Magdalena Medio, but also spread to other regions of the country .

CocaineHippoPablo Escobar

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2021-02-22

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