I like my hippos free-range.
A population has to remain small for quite a few generations to lose most of its genetic diversity. While the founder population was small, the population seems to be growing rapidly for such a large mammal so it’s unlikely that any lack of diversity will lead to its extinction.
I say ignore D_Odds and treat yourself to the unacceptably unhealthy dessert of your choice. He’s just jealous ;).
Took me about five minutes to finally get that joke.
It wasn’t worth the wait.
But “vague memories”… hippocampus…! It works on so many levels!
Two, I guess.
FWIW I got it immediately, and it was foul but not a Penalty. We’ve seen far worse around here. I smirked.
So maybe this is good news, because it means we wouldn’t have to hunt down every last South American hippo; we’d just need to keep the population small for an extended period. So once a month you send a hunter upriver in a boat for a few days to blast every hippo he sees, and after a few years, we should have a population that’s so inbred that it can no longer successfully reproduce?
In all seriousness, Mrs Iggy is Colombian and lives not too terribly far from this area. Grandpa died earlier this year and the family decided to scatter his ashes in the river. When she explained why they were traveling to the river further away I assumed I was losing something in the translation.
And because this is the Pit… It’s Colombia, not Columbia.