Pablo Escobar's reign of terror didn't end with his death and continues today in the form of a horde of hippos plaguing the Colombian countryside.
Earlier in April, Colombia approved euthanizing up to 80 wild hippos, descendants of four hippos Escobar brought to the country in the 1980s for his estate's private zoo. After his death in 1993, the hippos escaped and began reproducing in the wild.
An estimated 170 hippos now live in Colombia along the Magdalena River as far south as Escobar's former residence, Hacienda Napoles, and extending up to 100 miles north near Puerto Berrío.
The story has been decades in the making as the Colombian government tried multiple nonfatal methods of culling the hippo population, including neutering and relocating. Colombia’s environmental minister, Irene Vélez, declared the attempts too expensive and unsuccessful.
Hippos are native only to sub-Saharan Africa and thrive in water-rich environments, which is why the nonnative hippos in Colombia stay close to the Magdalena River.
