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+--- Thread: Article Colombia’s ‘cocaine hippo’ population is even bigger than thought (ethical choices) (/thread-14188.html)
Colombia’s ‘cocaine hippo’ population is even bigger than thought (ethical choices) - C C - Jun 3, 2023
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01818-z
EXCERPTS: Colombia’s ‘cocaine hippos’ are all descendants of three females and one male illegally imported by drug-cartel leader Pablo Escobar. [...] Without the natural predators or droughts of their native Africa to keep them in check, the giant herbivores have bred rapidly to form the largest population of the animals outside that continent.
Colombian officials have struggled to manage the hippos. [...] Some communities now depend on the tourism the hippos bring, whereas others — particularly fishing communities — live in fear of the highly territorial animals...
[...] Colombia’s environment ministry commissioned the census to get a better picture of the problem and how to manage it. Completing it was challenging: despite the hippos’ large size, it is difficult to find and count them accurately. They are nocturnal, immerse themselves in water for 16 hours a day and roam large distances.
[...] Colombia’s invasive hippo population is even larger than researchers had thought, according to the most thorough census of the animals conducted yet. Scientists were already concerned about the hippos — considered the largest invasive animal in the world — threatening native plants and animals in the country...
A few years ago, researchers estimated how fast the animals were reproducing, to project that about 98 hippos were living along the country’s Magdalena River and its tributaries in 20201. But the new study, for which a research team counted the animals in person, by drone and using other tracking methods, estimates that there are 181–215 of them residing in Colombia.
“Before, one argument against dealing with the hippos was that our information was limited and our arguments theoretical,” says ecologist Rafael Moreno, who participated in the study while at the Alexander von Humboldt Biological Resources Research Institute in Bogotá. “But we have put that argument to bed now. This study shows that this is a real issue, and that the state must act urgently.” (MORE - missing details)
RE: Colombia’s ‘cocaine hippo’ population is even bigger than thought (ethical choices) - C C - Jun 5, 2023
How the U.S. almost became a nation of hippo ranchers
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-the-us-almost-became-a-nation-of-hippo-ranchers-180982244/
In 1910, a failed House bill sought to increase the availability of low-cost meat by importing hippopotamuses that would be killed to make “lake cow bacon”.