Druglord hippopotami threatening Colombia
 

I'll copy the whole article since CBS puts annoying loud ads in their links, which I find to be rude.

My key questions are:

1. How did they forget the hippos?
2. Pablo Escobar's estate is a theme park? Whose idea was that?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pablo-e...ow-to-stop-it/

Pablo Escobar's hippos keep multiplying and Colombia doesn’t know how to stop it


Fishing villages, small boats and children at play dot the landscape along the shallow waterways of Colombia's Magdalena River. But an invasive species left behind by one of the country's most infamous figures is threatening the ecosystem and, possibly, a way of life.

That species? Hippos. The giants, native only to Africa, are now running wild in Colombia, reports CBS News' Manuel Bojorquez.

The story of Colombia's hippos starts in Villa Napoles, the former estate of Pablo Escobar, who in his heyday had four hippos smuggled there for his private zoo.

Escobar's ranch housed hundreds of exotic animals including rhinos, elephants and giraffes. By the 1980s, his cocaine empire made him the wealthiest and most feared drug lord in the world. For Colombia, it was a reign of terror. He's said to be responsible for some 7,000 deaths.

Around the time Escobar met his death in the early 90s, the government relocated most of the animals but not the hippos who were basically allowed to roam free.

"People forgot the hippos," said biologist David Echeverri, who works with CORNARE, the environmental agency in charge of tracking and managing the hippos in the region. He estimates there are about 50 or more of them now.

The area where they roam is a paradise for the animals who have no predators and ample food and water. But they're getting too close to people. It's not uncommon to spot a three-ton hippo walking around town. Locals call them the "village pets," but Echeverri said the "dangerous" and "territorial" species is anything but.

In Africa, hippos cause more human deaths than any other large animal. So far, there are no known attacks in Colombia.

The majority of the hippos still live inside Escobar's former estate, which was turned into a theme park in 2007, but the issue is that they can't keep them contained. Some have been able to get out which is how they are turning up in other areas.

Oberdan Martinez runs a theme park there, where the hippos are a main attraction. According to Martinez, Colombia's the only place you'll see a pack of hippos in the wild outside of Africa. He also said it's more common to see a hippo in that area than a pig.

There's concern the hippos have already started to displace native wildlife, like the manatee, and keep getting too close for comfort.

In the past year, fisherman Pablo Jose Mejia has come across five hippos that ventured outside of the theme park. But he said they're like dogs – if you know how to deal with them, you'll be fine.

But Echeverri fears, with an ever-growing hippo population, it's only a matter of time until someone gets hurt and killing the animals has proven highly unpopular.

"We can't just kill the hippos and the other solution is relocating hippos, sterilizing hippos," Echeverri said, although he acknowledged that would be an expensive and dangerous process.

With limited funds, it's a solution unlikely to stem the tide on a legacy that just keeps resurfacing.

They don't know how to stop it? I'm fairly sure this would work.

https://i.makeagif.com/media/5-06-2015/ouvlpR.gif

They might want to up the caliber a bit, though.

"We can't just kill the hippos."

Yeah, wouldn't want to divert any resources away from the kidnapping of tourists.

I guess I quit reading before that bit.

Newsflash - that's exactly what you do to an invasive species. When you're talking about Asian carp, the methods get a little tricky. With a ****ing hippo, not so much.

https://imgflip.com/i/2tc3u8

<a href="https://imgflip.com/i/2tc3u8"><img src="https://i.imgflip.com/2tc3u8.jpg" title="made at imgflip.com"/></a>

Couple weeks back, The Grand Tour went to Columbia, and part of the trip was checking those hippos.

They also uncovered this

<iframe width="949" height="534" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pmabcVBMbJU" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<iframe width="949" height="534" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/C1BePpr7xW0" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

https://www.sciencealert.com/what-ar...dliest-animals

The fifteen most dangerous animals to humans:

15. Sharks (6 deaths per year)
14. Wolves (10 deaths per year)
13. Lions (22+ deaths per year)
12. Elephants (500 deaths per year)
11. Hippos (500 deaths per year)
10. Tapeworms (700 deaths per year)
9. Crocodiles (1,000 deaths per year)
8. Ascaris roundworms (4,500 deaths per year)
7. Tsetse flies (10,000 deaths per year)
6. Assassin bugs (12,000 deaths per year)
5. Freshwater snails (20,000+ deaths per year)
4. Dogs (35,000 deaths per year)
3. Snakes (100,000 deaths per year)
2. Other humans (437,000 deaths per year)
1. Mosquitoes (750,000 deaths per year)

Sharks apparently get a bad rap. I'm still not going in the water, though. DAMN YOU SPIELBERG! :cuss:

Freshwater snails?

I wouldn't have expected that. But it seems like they're less of the killer than they are an accessory to the crime.

https://roaring.earth/snails-cause-2...aths-annually/

Assassin Bugs

https://imgur.com/a0xGdaE

WTH is an assassin buggy?

What the heck? Who designs these things? That's not even being mean. That's just total jerk-itude.

https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/19/healt...ted/index.html

(CNN)The nickname given to the insects that spread Chagas disease is somewhat bittersweet: kissing bugs.

Their name stems from the fact that they like biting humans around their lips and faces as they sleep, after which they defecate into the wound with feces that harbor an infectious parasite, Trypanasoma cruzi.

The parasite then enters the bloodstream and causes Chagas disease, also known as trypanosomiasis.

I've read that it was once proposed to introduce hippos to the Louisiana bayou as a way to fight a meat shortage.

Imagine hippos in the swamps all over southeast America..

I wonder how they'd do. Our swamps and rivers seem to have more stuff to get tangled up in than the little bit that I've seen in Africa.

It makes me think about how size is not a particular advantage any more. 20,000 years ago, big cavemen beat up smaller cavemen, and hippos went wherever they wanted. Today, a big guy is just a bigger target for a bullet, and we can identify invasive hippos but can't seem to control invasive zebra mussels.

nice

So, Donger looks at the list of countries that he'll never visit, and adds donkey-****ing Colombia to the list.

From a pure optimization standpoint, it seems like that would decrease the competition for the most attractive hookers.

Charge wealthy big game "hunters" outrageous fees and be done with it.

I was curious how hippopotomi became druglords in Columbia.....

Like anybody else, they start out as low-level street enforcers.

I can't imagine they'd have any natural predators here so I bet they'd do fine.

Rampaging hippos aside, it's actually improved a great deal from the cartel days. I have a cousin who has retired there because he can live comfortably on his pension. He and his wife have actually lived in Medellín for several years now, and seem to really enjoy it. I should add that he is also a bit nuts, but to each their own.

It used to be that Colombia was the dangerous hellhole and Venezuela was nice. The worm has definitely turned in that regard.

This was exactly my solution, and for enough money I'll volunteer....and they can feed these swamp cows to the starving people in Venezuela...

I don't exactly trust this list....water buffalo and cattle kill quite a few people each year.

Hell, I'd think American buffalo would be higher on the list than sharks. I remember topping a hill in Yellowstone and having to lock up my brakes because of the big stupid bastards was standing right in the middle of the road. Missed it by about a foot. They're thick as flies in certain parts of the Black Hills, too. They are foul-tempered and dangerous. I remember hearing from people who worked in Custer State Park being trapped in their homes because of them.

Had they actually been hunted to extinction, I wouldn't give two shits about it.

They damn near were. The American government tried to hunt them to extinction to exterminate Native Americans.

I've read estimates that there were once 65 million bison in America. That's insane.

“Pablo Escobar’s Hippos” would be a great name for a rock band.

Yeah, I think cruise ships stop in Colombia now. Apparently Pablo was the only problem they had. Now it's just a few rogue hippos.

Yep. You'd need a tank to drive across the plains states.

Saw a video where a hippo saved an antelope from being eaten by wild dogs after it got stuck in the mud. It proceeded to murder the antelope for moving around too much when it was struggling to get free.

Shit, I'm thinking "Donkey-****ing Colombians" is even better!

Someone released their pet Burmese Python into the Everglades in the 70's. They are now taking it over. Threatening an environmental catastrophe because they are eating up a whole layer of the ecosystem. They are huge, 20 ft. long. The Burmese Python's have been killed on hunts with deer inside them.


https://s.abcnews.com/images/US/HT_m...0_16x9_992.jpg

This is a situation where they shouldn't concern themselves with the hippies and environmental whackos. These are an invasive species and need eradicated quickly and affordably. If nothing else it would make a good training exercise for their helicopter gunners.

Someone will get the bright idea to relocate them to the everglades to help control the snakes.

Three words: Lake Cow Bacon

https://www.wired.com/2013/12/hippopotamus-ranching/

AND...there was a research Center destroyed by a hurricane, that resulted in numerous pythons escaping into the everglades.

Hippos create natural ecosystems. They should let them go free.

When hunters nearly killed them all in the Nile- the whole ecosystem collapsed and fishermen starved. Soon as they began protecting them- the fishing industry recovered.

Throw in a free 8ball a day and I bet you'd get a lot of shit shot.

Is it a hippopotamus, or just a really cool popotamus?

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FArZxLj6DLk" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Done... Well, a Meriachi band..

https://media.giphy.com/media/7fLvK1...ized-large.gif

Welp. It's time to nuke Florida from orbit.

Yeah, but they can also shit so much that they completely deprive the water of oxygen, killing everything else in the water.

https://www.sciencealert.com/hippopo...xia-kills-fish

Yeah but do they leave pubes in the urinal?

Goddamn offseason sucks.

Uhhmmm that's what most of the women look like down there.

The villagers need to train them as majestic steeds they ride around and into battle. Mount antifreeze cannons to them and carve spears out of AIDS tree branches. That would be a sweet story to read

Y'know, before I went to Peru I envisioned them as all squatty little women with bowler hats. But that wasn't true at all. A flirty conquistador could enjoy himself immensely there.

Oh. Never mind. I thought you were talking about Colombia, not Louisiana. But I'll leave my observation up, because it makes me happy to think about it.

Can't they just release some squareopotami to balance the ecology?

FAX

Then you'd just end up with this.

At least it's hard-working hippopotami and not those lazy long-haired hippiepotami.

Good lord, sell them as Christmas presents like the song says.

or Get Mutual of Omaha to send Marlon and Jim to solve it

RUN!!!

https://i.ibb.co/YPvPgdZ/b081932b97e...7b74b2e6e6.jpg

I'll bet Hippo tastes like giant pork.....and I'll wager the hams and bacon are outstanding.

I want a Columbian hippopotamus for Christmas
Only a Columbian hippopotamus will do
Don't want a doll, no dinkey tinker toy
I want a Columbian hippopotamus to get stoned with and enjoy

But I bet the’re bastards when they’re drinking.
Sec

They would certainly redefine the term "fatback".

I kind of want to try a hippoburger now. Are they endangered or anything?

Hmm, looks like it might be a special order: https://www.exoticmeatmarkets.com/Hi...Meat-s/608.htm

This might be the hippo meat article that ThaVirus mentioned: https://www.texasstandard.org/storie...eef-for-hippo/

Prior to the drought which devastated much of the waterlands, biscuits and gravopotamus was a very popular breakfast in the Sudan.

FAX