{"id":423478,"date":"2026-04-29T13:40:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T13:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/423478\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T13:40:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T13:40:13","slug":"indian-billionaire-offers-to-take-80-of-pablo-escobars-hippos-destined-for-slaughter-international","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/423478\/","title":{"rendered":"Indian billionaire offers to take 80 of Pablo Escobar\u2019s hippos destined for slaughter | International"},"content":{"rendered":"

Indian billionaire Anant Ambani, son of Asia\u2019s richest man, announced on Tuesday that he is willing to take in 80 of the Colombian hippos now slated for culling<\/a> under the strategy recently adopted by the Colombian government to control the spread of the invasive species. <\/p>\n

In a statement, Ambani said: \u201cThey are living, sentient beings, and if we have the ability to save them through a safe and humane solution, we have a responsibility to try.\u201d He added that the hippos did not choose where they were born nor the circumstances in which they now live.<\/p>\n

Ambani, 31, is the son of Mukesh Ambani, the majority shareholder of Reliance Industries, a business conglomerate with interests in sectors such as textiles, energy, and telecommunications. He has proposed to take in 80 of the nearly 200 hippos currently living in Colombia<\/a>, which are descendants of the hippos introduced to the South American country by the drug lord Pablo Escobar in the early 1980s. The plan is to relocate them to his Vantara Conservation Center in western India, which is already home to primates, felines, elephants, and other rescued animals.<\/p>\n

\"\"Hippos in Puerto Triunfo, Colombia, in February 2020.Ivan Valencia (AP)<\/p>\n

In his statement, the billionaire argues that compassion and public safety \u201care not opposing forces\u201d and adds that it is possible to preserve ecosystems and save the lives of many animals \u201cwith sound science and careful planning,\u201d EFE reports. \u201cVantara has the expertise, infrastructure and resolve to support this effort, entirely on Colombia\u2019s terms,\u201d he added. So far, the Colombian government has not responded to Ambani\u2019s request. <\/p>\n

Ambani\u2019s proposal comes just days after the Colombian government announced a plan to euthanize 80 of the hippos roaming freely in the Middle Magdalena region, along the banks of the Magdalena River. This is the area where Escobar built his opulent Hacienda N\u00e1poles<\/a>, which he designed to fulfill his fantasy of experiencing an African safari at his own private retreat. Over the years, that fantasy has turned into an environmental problem, due to the danger posed by hippopotamuses as predators and the severe pollution they cause, which affects species that are native to Colombia.<\/p>\n

The Colombian government explained just a couple of weeks ago that its decision to cull the hippos in a controlled manner was made after no other country agreed to take them in. The acting minister of the environment, Irene V\u00e9lez, said: \u201cThe administrative silence indicates that there is no interest in receiving them.\u201d <\/p>\n

She added that without lethal control of these animals, by 2030 the population will have increased to at least 500, which would damage ecosystems and affect species such as the manatee and the river turtle. The aggressiveness of these animals, which are often spotted in urban areas of nearby towns such as Puerto Triunfo and Doradal, also poses a risk to local communities.<\/p>\n

The Indian magnate\u2019s ability to bear the enormous cost of transporting the hippos \u2014 a single specimen of this species can weigh up to three tons \u2014 is beyond question. Ambani, together with his partner Radhika Merchant, was at the center of what was dubbed at the time the \u201cwedding of the year\u201d in 2024<\/a>. The pre-wedding celebrations in March included a concert by Barbadian singer Rihanna and were attended by more than 1,000 guests, including business magnates Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, as well as Ivanka Trump, daughter of U.S. President Donald Trump. <\/p>\n

At a second pre-wedding event in May, guests flew from Mumbai to Barcelona to embark on a luxury Mediterranean cruise with more than 800 attendees. In July came the final wedding, which was so extravagant that it sparked a debate about the enormous economic inequalities in India.<\/p>\n

Sign up for our weekly newsletter<\/a> to get more English-language news coverage from EL PA\u00cdS USA Edition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Indian billionaire Anant Ambani, son of Asia\u2019s richest man, announced on Tuesday that he is willing to take…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423479,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[9151,61,2568,60,143609,82,263],"class_list":["post-423478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-colombia","tag-ie","tag-india","tag-ireland","tag-pablo-escobar","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}