Apparently drug kingpin Pablo Escobar liked hippos, and imported some to his home in Columbia. Since his arrest, some have gone wild, where they are thriving.
The linked article discusses plans to address them “in humane ways” such as surgical sterilization. Seriously? Just shoot the damned things.
Why is there any debate? Sure, animal rights and all - but at what cost?
No shooting hippos!
I suppose it’s because the people who live there don’t want to shoot them. If they decided to go the shooting route, if sterilization doesn’t work, I’d recommend getting a Rich American Douchebag™ to pay top dollar for the opportunity.
And TIL… it’s very difficult to castrate a hippo, it seems that their testicles are well protected and, um… shift.
That was my thought; if indeed they are an invasive animal, then they ought to monetize it and have people (not just American) pay good money to go down there and hunt them.
How much damage are they doing? They multiply slowly and I thought didn’t do much harm to the local environment, so why kill them.
From the article:
Also, according to Tom Lehrer the plural is not hippopotamuses but hipponpotami. (My spell check doesn’t agree with Mr. Lehrer)
You’re answering your own question. Not saying with certainty that it’s an animal rights issue, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if that turned out to be the reason we’re not sending inviting jerk dentists to dispatch them with high-powered rifles.
Here in Ann Arbor, we’ve got a deer population problem within the city itself. They get hit by cars and chew up people’s landscaping, and so for several years now, the city council has hired a team of sharpshooters to cull a predetermined number of them each winter. The program has invited plenty of protest.
They shoot water horses, don’t they?
Hunting parties, huh? I clearly remember the last time this happened, people setting up hippo camps…
That’s Allan Sherman, I think
“One hippopotami cannot get on a bus,
Because one hippopotami is two hippopotamus
And if you have two goose, that makes one geese
A pair of mouse is mice A pair of moose is meese”
Interesting use of the word ‘arrest.’
Heh…in the The Grand Tour’s Columbia Special, one of the assignments given to May, Hammond and Clarkson was to get a photo of those hippos. An amusing outing for the mis-adventuring trio.
Also from the story linked to
I won’t quote directly but also in the link is that they are very dangerous to humans. Hippos are pretty aggressive and massive. They kill more people in Africa than any other animal.
It’s really not a good idea to import megafauna from elsewhere. Here is what happened when someone had the bright idea to bring North American beavers to Tierra del Fuego in South America.
Yes, they have tried hunting them but it may be too late - there are too many.
I don’t think hippo are real high on the list of desirable big game animals.
Well, it was a *cardiac * arrest, occasioned by acute lead poisoning.
Easy solution: give them away for Christmas presents.
I think a reality TV show where there’s a race between gun totin’ locals and feral hippos to catch the Rich American Douchebag™ in the Columbian jungle might rate it’s socks off.
<pedant>Mrs Iggy wants to says that It’s Colombia, not Columbia!</pedant>
As a native Colombian she is aware of the hippos. Though many locals refer to them as mascotas (pets) del pueblo, apparently the beasts have attacked local fishermen and damaged crops. And with the population booming and no real predators the problems are just going to grow.
I’m glad we can stop ignoring the elephant in the room and start ignoring the hippo instead.