Remember the cocaine hippos??
When [Pablo] Escobar was killed in a shootout with the police in 1993, his 7,000 acre playboy estate was seized by the government (although it's now an amusement park). This included his personal zoo, where four hippos managed to escape. ...
Biology being biology, these hippos have multiplied to a herd of 80-100 and are wreaking havoc on local wildlife.
And yes, of course, they call them "cocaine hippos." Because, y'know.
The legal treatment of these suckers has been interesting, to say the least:
Well, "people" or not, these hippos are about to get one heck of a treatment from the government:
Colombia on Tuesday began the sterilization of hippopotamuses, descendants of animals illegally brought to the country by late drug kingpin Pablo Escobar in the 1980s.
Two male hippos and one female underwent surgical sterilization, environmental authorities said. It is part of a larger government effort to control the population of more than 100 of the mammals that roam around unsupervised in some rivers.
Cute, majestic little death machines!
They're not just an awful headache; they're classified as an "invasive species" that is disrupting the native ecosystem. So authorities have developed plans that include:
the sterilization of 40 hippos a year, transfer[ring] some of them to other countries and possibly euthanasia.
Watch out, hippos. You're about to get the Harambe Treatment!
The hippos were originally "brought in the 1980s to Hacienda Nápoles, Escobar's private zoo that became a tourist attraction after his death in 1993." It was, shall we say, quite the estate — certainly fit for the life of a notorious drug lord:
The Colombian government, meanwhile, "estimates there are 169 hippos in Colombia," and that "if no measures are taken, there could be 1,000 by 2035."
Imagine a hundred years from now: South America is overrun as millions of hippos charge through the Amazon rainforest, fueled by hate and cocaine (mostly cocaine).
It's either us or the hippos! 😭
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