Hippos Become a Disaster in a Region of Colombia, Left Behind by a Former Gang Leader
According to foreign media reports on January 31st, the former Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar's hippos have become a disaster and caused serious damage to the local ecosystem.
It is reported that Escobar was one of the wealthiest criminals in history and once topped Forbes magazine's list of the world's 7 richest people.
In the luxurious countryside estate 90 miles east of Medellín, he built a private zoo, which housed many rare exotic animals, including elephants, ostriches, rhinos, giraffes, zebras, and hippos.
In 1993, Escobar died at the hands of the police, and the Colombian government seized his assets, and the animals he raised were donated to local and international zoos.
▲Pablo Escobar
However, due to the difficulty of capturing the hippos, they were left in the local area.
Over the past 20 years, the four hippos Escobar raised have grown to a scale of 80, and they have spread to surrounding small lakes.
This provides researchers with an observation object for studying the impact of invasive species after the extinction of local animals of the same size.
In the study, scientists analyzed changes in water quality and other environmental factors in the hippos' presence area over two years, and they found that the hippos were changing the chemical composition and biological composition of the local lakes.
A researcher named Shulin said that if you calculate their breeding speed, you will find that they are growing at an exponential rate, and in the near future there will be thousands of hippos here.
She added: 'How to deal with these hippos is indeed a dilemma for the Colombian government, on the one hand their existence has a significant boost to the local tourism industry, on the other hand they are constantly aggravating ecological destruction.'
