Cocaine hippos get a billionaire-sponsored lifeline: NPR
SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
In Colombia, the saga of the so-called cocaine hippos rolls on. For years, descendants of a drug lord’s non-public zoo have been proliferating and roaming the wild. And now there’s a new debate about whether or not they need to be culled and – or in some way saved by an Indian billionaire. Manuel Rueda stories.
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MANUEL RUEDA, BYLINE: Here in Doradal, a small city within the heart of Colombia, the grunt of hippos has turn out to be a part of the soundscape.
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RUEDA: Every afternoon, locals and vacationers hang around at a lake on the sting of the city. They chat and drink beers as they watch the enormous beasts floating within the lake.
LINA MORALES: (Speaking Spanish).
RUEDA: “This is one of the main attractions in town,” says Lina Morales, a native lodge employee.
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RUEDA: The hippos are the descendants of 4 animals introduced illegally to Colombia within the Nineteen Eighties by Pablo Escobar. The infamous drug lord owned a non-public zoo on a ranch close to Doradal, the place he additionally had elephants, giraffes and zebras. But nobody captured the hippos after the Colombian authorities seized Escobar’s properties, and due to the shortage of pure predators, their inhabitants exploded.
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RUEDA: Scientists estimate there are actually 200 hippos roaming freely round Doradal, a city that is surrounded by lush forests and large rivers. And some say the time has come to cull them. Biologist Nataly Castelblanco says the hippos deposit massive quantities of waste in lakes and riverbeds, and this could result in drastic adjustments within the chemical composition of the water.
NATALY CASTELBLANCO: Including adjustments within the pH and in addition much less oxygen. So then all of the crops that want oxygens within the water are going to be collapsed due to this.
RUEDA: With fewer underwater crops, the native meals chain suffers.
CASTELBLANCO: The hippos have transversal influence on the ecosystem.
RUEDA: In mid-April, Colombia’s authorities introduced a plan to regulate the nation’s hippo inhabitants, together with culling as much as 80 animals this yr.
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RUEDA: But many in Doradal are towards these plans. Here, the hippos have turn out to be a vacationer attraction with statues of the animals displayed all through the city.
TANIA GALINDO: (Speaking Spanish).
RUEDA: “They’re part of our community now,” says enterprise proprietor Tania Galindo. “There’s no other place outside of Africa with wild hippos.” Some locals in Doradal now take guests on hippo safaris. Others promote key rings, T-shirts and different souvenirs that includes the semi-aquatic mammals.
GALINDO: (Speaking Spanish).
RUEDA: “Their population should be controlled,” Galindo says. “But in a peaceful manner that respects their life and the appreciation we have for them.” Colombia initially tried to curb the hippo inhabitants by means of sterilization, first with surgical procedures, then contraceptive injections. But biologist Nataly Castelblanco says the procedures are expensive and dangerous, making large-scale sterilization troublesome. She says culling is the simplest resolution.
CASTELBLANCO: We do it with lionfish. You see the circumstances of the camels in Australia.
RUEDA: But now, Colombia’s hippos could have been thrown into a lifeline. Indian billionaire Anant Ambani has supplied to relocate 80 hippos to his wildlife reserve in Gujarat state.
SERGIO ESTRADA: It can be a main endeavor, for positive.
RUEDA: Sergio Estrada is a biology professor at Bogota’s Rosario University. He’s skeptical of the billionaire’s proposal.
ESTRADA: Depending on after they – the place they lure them and catch them, they must drive them in big vehicles and lorries to the Rio Negro airport close to Medellin, and that’s about 150 kilometers. So that in itself is not any straightforward job.
RUEDA: Then the hippos must be placed on plans to India on a lengthy flight that requires a stopover.
ESTRADA: And so think about, what would you want to do to maintain these animals secure and relaxed throughout this journey?
RUEDA: There are additionally questions on how these wild animals would fare in Ambani’s reserve, which is tiny in comparison with the realm these hippos now stay in.
ESTRADA: I do not see these animals dwelling and roaming freely on this location in India.
RUEDA: Colombia’s setting ministry says that if drastic measures will not be taken to regulate the hippos, their inhabitants may double over the following 5 years.
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RUEDA: That would possibly lure extra hippo lovers to Doradal. But it additionally leaves Colombian officers with troublesome selections about methods to handle a rising and unpredictable inhabitants.
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RUEDA: For NPR News, I’m Manuel Rueda in Doradal, Colombia.
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