Drug kingpin Pablo Escobar may be long gone — but his four pet hippos have multiplied and are terrorizing the countryside of Colombia.
In the 1980s, Escobar was the wealthiest and most-feared drug kingpin in the world. His private ranch was home to hundreds of exotic animals, including rhinos, elephants and giraffes. At the time, Escobar also boasted a collection of four hippos.
David Echeverri, who works for CORNARE, the environmental agency tasked with tracking the hippo herd says there could be more than 50 descendants from the original pod. “People forgot the hippos,” he told CBS news.
In Africa, the hippo accounts for the most deaths in humans of any other large animal, so authorities aren’t taking their presence lightly.
“We can’t just kill the hippos and the other solution is relocating hippos, sterilizing hippos,” Echeverri said, adding that the process could be not only dangerous but also expensive.
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