{"id":601959,"date":"2026-04-13T20:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T20:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/601959\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T20:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T20:46:08","slug":"colombia-to-cull-up-to-80-hippos-descended-from-pablo-escobar-zoo-colombia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/601959\/","title":{"rendered":"Colombia to cull up to 80 hippos descended from Pablo Escobar zoo | Colombia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Colombian<\/a> officials have authorized a plan to cull dozens of hippos descended from animals brought to the country in the 1980s by Pablo Escobar, after the feral beasts displaced native species and threatened local villagers.<\/p>\n

The environment minister, Irene V\u00e9lez, said the decision was reached because other methods to control their population had been expensive and unsuccessful, including neutering some of the animals or moving them to zoos. V\u00e9lez said that up to 80 hippos would be affected by the measure. She did not say when the hunting would begin.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we don\u2019t do this we will not be able to control the population,\u201d V\u00e9lez said. \u201cWe have to take this action to preserve our ecosystems.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colombia is the only country outside Africa with a wild hippo population, which descends entirely from four individuals imported by Escobar in the 1980s<\/a> as the drug lord built a private zoo in Hacienda N\u00e1poles, a gigantic ranch in the Magdalena River valley.<\/p>\n

A study published by Colombia\u2019s National University estimated that about 170 hippos were roaming freely in the country in 2022.<\/p>\n

Recently, hippos have been spotted in areas that are more than 100km (60 miles) north of the ranch, where Escobar initially introduced the water-dwelling pachyderms.<\/p>\n

Environmental authorities in Colombia say the large mammals pose a threat to villagers who have encountered them in farms and rivers. They also compete for food and space against local species such as river manatees.<\/p>\n

Despite the environmental challenges, the hippos have also become a tourist attraction, with residents of the villages surrounding Hacienda N\u00e1poles now offering hippo spotting tours and selling hippo-themed souvenirs.<\/p>\n

The hippos are also one of the main attractions at the N\u00e1poles ranch, which was confiscated by Colombia\u2019s government as it seized Escobar\u2019s properties. It now functions as a theme park, featuring swimming spools, water slides and a zoo that includes several other African species.<\/p>\n

Hippo key rings are displayed for sale at a souvenir shop near the Hacienda N\u00e1poles Park in 2020. Photograph: Iva\u0301n Valencia\/AP<\/p>\n

Animal welfare activists in Colombia have long opposed proposals to kill the hippos, arguing they deserve to live, and adding that addressing the problem through violence sets a poor example for a country that has gone through decades of internal conflict.<\/p>\n

Andrea Padilla, a senator and animal rights activist who helped draft a law against bullfights in Colombia,<\/a> described the plan to cull the hippos as a \u201ccruel\u201d decision and accused government officials of trying to take the easy way out.<\/p>\n

\u201cKillings and massacres will never be acceptable,\u201d Padilla wrote on X. \u201cThese are healthy creatures who are victims of the negligence\u201d of government entities.<\/p>\n

Over the past 12 years, a period spanning three different presidential administrations, Colombia has tried to neuter some of the hippos <\/a>in an effort to reduce their population. But these initiatives have had a limited scope, due to the high costs that come with capturing the dangerous animals, and performing surgeries on them.<\/p>\n

Because Colombia\u2019s hippos come from a limited gene pool, and could carry diseases, taking them back to their natural habitat in Africa is also unfeasible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Colombian officials have authorized a plan to cull dozens of hippos descended from animals brought to the country…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":601960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-601959","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}