Descendants of Pablo Escobar's 'cocaine hippos' to be killed in Colombia

Pablo Escobar's reign of terror didn't end with his death and continues today in the form of a horde of hippos plaguing the Colombian countryside.

Earlier in April, Colombia approved euthanizing up to 80 wild hippos, descendants of four hippos Escobar brought to the country in the 1980s for his estate's private zoo. After his death in 1993, the hippos escaped and began reproducing in the wild.

In an April 28 statement, Indian billionaire Anant Ambani proposed to relocate the 80 hippos to his Vantara Conservation Center in India to save them from the government-ordered culling. The Colombian government has not yet responded.

An estimated 170 hippos now live in Colombia along the Magdalena River as far south as Escobar's former residence, Hacienda Napoles, and extending up to 100 miles north near Puerto Berrío.

The story has been decades in the making as the Colombian government tried multiple nonfatal methods of culling the hippo population, including neutering and relocating. Colombia’s environmental minister, Irene Vélez, declared the attempts too expensive and unsuccessful.

Why are the Colombian hippos problematic?

Hippos are native only to sub-Saharan Africa and thrive in water-rich environments, which is why the nonnative hippos in Colombia stay close to the Magdalena River.

Hippos have an average lifespan of up to 50 years and no natural predators in Colombia, which is why the population ballooned from just four to nearly 200 today. Experts estimate the number could rise to 500 by the end of the decade.

How has the Colombian government been dealing with the hippos?

Controlling the hippo population has been controversial among the government, environmentalists and residents.

A hippo named Pepe, believed to be one of the original four, was killed in 2009, and his death was met with public outrage and a court-ordered ban on killing hippos as a means of population control.

Colombia has offered to transport the hippos to zoos, but no country has agreed to take any. They also can't be taken back to Africa, because they're genetically distinct from wild African hippos as a result of inbreeding. They also could carry diseases that could damage African ecosystems.

What is Colombia doing to limit the spread of hippos?

On April 13, Vélez introduced the nearly $2 million plan to physically and chemically euthanize hippos, which will be selected based on their size and proximity to humans. The government hopes to kill at least 80 hippos by the end of this year.