A sign next to a cattle pond in central Colombia cautions visitors that the water belongs to the most perilous creature on the planet and that they should keep their distance. The sign is correct. It is also approximately 11,000 kilometers away from the continent where that creature originated.<\/p>\n
Situated between Doradal and Puerto Triunfo, fairly mid-way on the route from Bogot\u00e1 to Medell\u00edn, wild African hippos have been quietly multiplying for four decades.<\/p>\n
How four turned into a herd<\/p>\n
Pablo Escobar imported three females and one male from a US zoo in 1981, adding to the private collection at his Hacienda N\u00e1poles estate, which included giraffes, zebras, and a batch of concrete dinosaurs. After his assassination in 1993, most of the animals were distributed to various zoos, but no one considers a three-ton territorial herbivore an easy undertaking to transfer, so the hippos were left behind. Eventually, they wandered off the estate, into the Magdalena River system, and adapted to their new surroundings.<\/p>\n
Adapted is the essential term. Hippo populations in Africa are limited by drought, crocodiles, lions, and seasonal water-level reductions, none of which are relevant in the humid lowlands of Antioquia. Biologist Katerine Corrales highlighted this in comments to a Caracol news team on a hippo-inhabited river island, as reported by The Bogot\u00e1 Post: without Africa\u2019s dry season to reset conditions, a stable climate and plentiful water simply facilitate quicker reproduction.<\/p>\n
Discrepancy in numbers<\/p>\n
When the sterilization initiative commenced, the environmental ministry operated on an estimate of 169 animals, as reported by CBS News, along with a caution that inaction could lead to a population of 1,000 hippos by 2035. A 2023 modeling study in Scientific Reports, led by ecologist Amanda Subalusky, counted 91 hippos in the middle Magdalena basin and predicted an annual growth rate of 9.6 percent, projecting 230 by 2032 and over 1,000 by 2050. A field survey commissioned by the ministry, conducted with drones and on-site researchers, later reported numbers between 181 and 215, as featured in Scientific American.<\/p>\n
These figures differ because they assess various metrics, comparing one basin to an entire nation, projections versus headcounts. What remains unchallenged is the trend.<\/p>\n
The primary concern is digestion<\/p>\n
Hippos graze on land during the night and rest in water throughout the day, functioning as nutrient pumps. A research team led by Jonathan Shurin at UC San Diego examined 14 small lakes near the former estate and compared those with hippos to those without, publishing their findings in the journal Ecology. Lakes inhabited by hippos were more dominated by cyanobacteria, the blue-green algae responsible for harmful blooms, and exhibited significantly altered ecosystem metabolism.<\/p>\n
One study represents just one study, and it documented an invasion in its early phases. Shurin\u2019s team carefully articulated their findings, alerting that ongoing range expansion might threaten water resources instead of asserting that the sampled ponds were already compromised. Colombia\u2019s environment ministry has since taken a stronger stance, citing damage to water quality and local species, including the manatee and the river turtle, announcing hippos as an invasive species in 2022.<\/p>\n
The economical solutions are no longer viable<\/p>\n
Sterilizing a wild hippo entails capturing it, anesthetizing it, and performing surgery, averaging around US$9,800 per procedure, with genuine risks for both the animal and the veterinary staff. Relocation appeared more humane in theory but proved fruitless: officials contacted seven nations and two international zoo and aquarium organizations, and as noted by Scientific American, not a single entity consented to accept even one animal. Inbreeding has resulted in genetic defects within the Colombian population, further dampening institutional interest, according to Reuters.<\/p>\n
Subalusky\u2019s team also calculated the expense of inaction. Reducing the population sustainably would require at least one to two million US dollars if initiated promptly, and postponing by just a decade increases that minimum by 2.5 times and renders some methods entirely unattainable.<\/p>\n
What is expected to occur this year<\/p>\n
Environment minister Irene V\u00e9lez declared on April 13 that the government will put down approximately 80 hippos, commencing in the latter half of 2026. An allocation of 7.2 billion pesos, roughly US$2 million, has been designated for the cull along with confinement and relocation efforts. Writing in Mongabay, Naina Rao remarked that this signifies the first authorized hunt in the nation in four decades. The plan is based on a 170-page technical document completed in 2022 by the Humboldt Institute and Universidad Nacional, targeting areas near Puerto Triunfo and the river island of Isla del Silencio.<\/p>\n
The decision has sparked controversy.<\/p>\n
Senator Andrea Padilla labeled the action as cruel and expressed her opposition to the killings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A sign next to a cattle pond in central Colombia cautions visitors that the water belongs to the most perilous creature on the planet and that they should keep their distance. The sign is correct. It is also approximately 11,000 kilometers away from the continent where that creature originated. Situated between Doradal and Puerto Triunfo, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":375972,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[179],"class_list":["post-375971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-source-scienceblog-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=375971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/375972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=375971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=375971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=375971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}