Colombia To Transfer 70 Of Pablo Escobar’s Hippos To India And Mexico

"The whole operation should cost around $3.5 million," Ernesto Zazueta, owner of the Ostok Sanctuary was quoted by the AFP.

Colombia, on Wednesday, said that they will transfer 70 hippopotamuses that belonged to deceased drug lord Pablo Escobar to new locations.

Authorities said that they plan to send 10 of them to the Ostok Sanctuary in northern Mexico, and the remaining 60 to an as-yet-unnamed facility in India.

"The whole operation should cost around $3.5 million," Ernesto Zazueta, owner of the Ostok Sanctuary was quoted by the AFP.

Zazueta and the local governor of the Colombian region which is home to hippos plan to lure the animals into pens using bait, where they will remain until they are moved to special crates for the transfer.

The cocaine baron brought a small number of the animals from Africa to Colombia in the late 1980s. But after his death in 1993 the animals were left to roam freely in a hot, marshy area of Antioquia department, where environmental authorities have been helpless to curb their numbers.

After Escobar’s death, the hippos escaped, the government failed to tame the booming population of the hippos who made the Magdalena River basin their home. Though a sterilisation programme is in place, it has failed because hippos breed faster than local experts can find, catch and castrate them. The environment ministry declared the hippos an invasive species last year, which opened the door to an eventual cull.

Although, according to The Guardian, in 2009 it tried culling the animals but stopped after a graphic photo caused national outrage.

Originally four hippos had escaped from Escobar’s country estate, today, about 150 exist, which is the largest population outside Africa, as per AFP. In Colombia, there are no natural predators to keep the hippo population in check because of this it will keep growing exponentially. According to one study, by the year 2034, there will be around 1,400 hippos.

Studies have warned that these animals are damaging the ecosystem of Magdalena, which is the largest river in one of the most biodiverse countries in the world, The Guardian reported. Each hippo atleast 40 kgs of grass causing the excrement alone is poisoning the river, killing the fish and causing harm to the river’s rich biodiversity.

Attack of these animals on humans has also become common which makes taming the population all the more important.