The descents of the 4 illegally introduced hippopotamuses introduced from Africa by Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar within the Nineteen Eighties are posing issues for Colombia now. Round 70 of the hippos could also be moved to India and Mexico to manage their rising inhabitants. As per an AP report, these hippos, that are very territorial and might weigh as much as 3 tons, have reproduced and unfold past the Hacienda Napoles ranch and will attain a inhabitants of 400 in eight years.
Why do they must be relocated?
Scientists warn that they’re a possible risk to biodiversity and that their feces may impression the habitat of different animals in native rivers, reported AP. The scientists had warned that they do not have a pure predator in Colombia and therefore pose a risk to the opposite animals.
The plan to maneuver the hippos has been within the works for greater than a yr, and they might be lured into massive containers with meals after which transferred by truck to an airport in Rionegro, the place they’d be flown to sanctuaries and zoos in India and Mexico. Sixty hippos would go to the Greens Zoological Rescue & Rehabilitation Kingdom in Gujarat, India, and 10 could be despatched to sanctuaries and zoos in Mexico.
Hippos could also be despatched to Greens Zoological Rescue & Rehabilitation Kingdom in Gujarat
This relocation would assist management the hippo inhabitants and is taken into account extra humane than exterminating them as an “invasive” species. The relocation plan is targeted on the hippos residing within the rivers surrounding the Hacienda Napoles ranch, not these contained in the ranch. Different nations, together with Ecuador, the Philippines, and Botswana, have additionally expressed their curiosity in relocating the Colombian hippos.
David Echeverri López, a spokesman for Cornare, the native environmental authority that might be answerable for the relocations informed AP, “It’s attainable to do, we have already got expertise relocating hippos in zoos nationwide.”
