Invasive Specie: Hippopotami in Colombia, South America

apnews.com...

The hippos, which are territorial and weigh up to 3 tons, have spread far beyond the Hacienda Napoles ranch, located 200 kilometer (124 mile) from Bogota along the Magdalena River. Environmental authorities estimate there are about 130 hippos in the area in Antioquia province and their population could reach 400 in eight years.

the late drug lord Pablo Escobar thought it would be fun to have some pet hippos on his estate so he imported four. Colombia was found to be well suited for the beasts. and they have no natural predators.

bad idea. those things are very dangerous.

a reply to: ElGoobero

What do they taste like?

Good hides?

Simple solution and they really aren't good at hiding.

P

a reply to: ElGoobero
Always thought this was one of the "better"acheivemnets of Pablo-I know hippos are dangerous,but I would rather live near a river with a load of hippos in it than live near a crackhead encampment.

At least hippos will leave you alone if you keep a safe distance,and they don't turn regular people into a55h0les/cause societal issues like addiction/mass burglaries/gun violence/psychosis/etc.

Things like this always confuse me. It's always claimed you need a breeding population of at least 50 or something higher than that to have a viable breeding population due to inbreeding, but I also keep reading stories of species successfully coming back from near extinction, or becoming a highly successful invasive species off absurdly low numbers, including as low as a single breeding pair of birds off shooting into an entirely new species on an isolated island. So where does this "viable" breeding population claim come from, and how does it account for all these clear discrepancies?

So why don't they just tranquilize them and ship them back to Africa, or Zoos?

I Know it is dangerous, but it has obviously been done before, since we have them in zoo's already?

Hmm... Could they survive in the Rio Grande?
Probably not.

The Natural selection process naturally weeds out the defective off spring. The viable offspring survive and reproduce . Because humans are no longer subject to natural selection we are stuck with the inbred human.

a reply to: Puppylove

a reply to: ElGoobero

The hippos don't have any natural predators in Columbia, and it's estimated their numbers could reach 400 in the next eight years. The government has proposed sending at least 70 of them to zoos in India and Mexico, prompting a lawsuit from activists.

In a first, a US court has recognised animals as legal persons – specifically, the descendants of Pablo Escobar’s hippopotamuses who have thrived in Colombia since the notorious drug lord was killed almost 30 years ago.

[www.scmp.com...]

Another link:
[www.abc.net.au...]

It's good that some with common sense can see the risks generations from now and want to deal with the problem before it becomes unmanageable, like the wild boar problem in the US. Introducing non-native species with no control or long-term foresight never seems to end well.

a reply to: nugget1

Sending them to zoos would be incredibly cruel.

The most humane thing to do would be to cull a few of them every year like we do with deer.

originally posted by: Wide-Eyes
a reply to: nugget1

Sending them to zoos would be incredibly cruel.

The most humane thing to do would be to cull a few of them every year like we do with deer.

That's one way to look at it, but I don't think the animal rights activists would go along with it.
A lot of people felt the same way about the wild boars that have taken over much of America, and now the problem has become impossible to contain.

Kudzu is another example of how non-native species can destroy native environments. There's a reason man shouldn't play God and subvert the perfectly balanced natural order, but as a species we don't seem to ever learn from our past mistakes.

As long as continual arguing over how to address the problem continues, the hippos will continue to flourish and endanger the natural habitat of Columbia, risking extinction of native species.

From killer ants to Africanized honey bees and Asian Giant Hornets, sooner or later there will be a price to pay.

a reply to: chiefsmom

there was a plan back in the day to put hippos in the Southern Mississippi river

www.wired.com...

colombians need to get on that Lake cow bacon or tocino de la vaca del rio

a reply to: nugget1

Fair is fair.

We cull hippos. Hippos cull activists. Justice is served. Eventually, wisdom might be attained.

a reply to: Athetos

I think if Humanity was brought down to just two people, "humanity" would most likely be in a position where natural selection applies again. Can't think of many catastrophic causes of such an occurrence that wouldn't force such a scenario.

a reply to: Puppylove

It wouldn't take that.

Fire up the EMPs and natural selection would kick in. Bring on an ice age, and it would apply.

We humans suffer from massive hubris. We think that because we have technology that we've placed ourselves outside nature, but that's not so. All nature has to do is show us something we have no experience with, and we're just animals struggling to survive like any others.

a reply to: ketsuko

I was using the stereotypical worst case last two people on earth scenario, and yeah I agree. The viable population seems like a load of hooey. At risk maybe, but calling such a population non viable is absurd until other factors besides population numbers make it such.

Also, natural selection still occurs anyway, it's silly people think it doesn't. Natural selection is about breeding, not survival, and we most certainly still have selective breeding based on various factors. If birds breeding for different colors counts as natural selection, so does all our breeding preferential bull#.