Colombia Called Off the Hippo Cull. Nobody Else Will Take Them.

Environment

Colombia’s next environment minister has announced that the Escobar hippos will not be killed. He gave his reason with unusual candour, saying the matter is too publicly sensitive, and conceding that lethal control is among the actions the Convention on Biological Diversity recommends.

Fabio Arjona, a marine biologist named to the cabinet of president-elect Abelardo De la Espriella, told Colombian media over the weekend that “there will be no lethal control of the hippos”. He offered something “more intelligent” instead, and no details of what that might be.

His government takes office on the seventh of August. He has promised a solution within a year.

What the Escobar hippos plan actually contains

He is not cancelling an idea. He is cancelling a fully assembled machine.

On the thirteenth of April the environment ministry published protocols for euthanasia and translocation and assigned money for the first time, roughly two million dollars from a biodiversity fund. Four regional corporations were contracted to carry it out.

Agreements with them were signed on the fifteenth of June, and implementation was to begin in this half of the year. Within ten days of every intervention the corporations must report the animal’s sex, its estimated age, the exact coordinates, the method used and a photographic record.

The outgoing minister was blunt about why. Irene Vélez said that “without this action it is impossible to control the growth of the species”.

The protocol runs to two methods, chemical and physical, the second only where terrain or logistics defeat the first. It specifies sanitary standards, traceability, biosecurity and the protection of aquifers.

She was equally candid about why nothing had happened before. The regional corporations had never been given money earmarked for the task, and this was the first time the state had funded it at all.

The arithmetic of not deciding

Here is a figure that appears nowhere in the coverage. Technicians told the government in 2022 to remove at least thirty-three animals a year from the ecosystems.

Four years on, not one has been culled. On the technicians’ own arithmetic the backlog stands near a hundred and thirty animals, which is why the April plan reached for at least half the herd at once.

The ministry now counts more than two hundred hippos in the Magdalena Medio. Left alone it expects five hundred by 2030 and something close to a thousand by 2035.

This newspaper reported a figure of around a hundred and sixty in June, drawn from earlier estimates, and we are updating it here. Colombia declared the animal an invasive exotic species in 2022, citing damage to water quality and to native creatures including the manatee and the river turtle.

Nobody wants them, and the reason is genetic

Translocation is not an unexplored alternative. It is an exhausted one.

Seven countries have been approached without success, namely Ecuador, Peru, the Philippines, India, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and South Africa. The detail in the ministry’s own release is where the story turns.

A Mexican sanctuary was willing to take ten animals, but the country’s environmental authority found a legal bar on importing invasive species. In the Philippines interest ran to fifteen, the ministry authorised five, and the receiving zoo pulled out over cost.

Fifteen places, across two countries, for a herd above two hundred. India was contacted through diplomatic channels on the ninth of April and had not answered.

Then comes the cruellest sentence in the document. Every one of these animals descends from the four that Pablo Escobar brought illegally to his private zoo in the nineteen-eighties, and the population already shows deformities associated with inbreeding.

That low genetic diversity is itself one reason foreign zoos decline them. The compassionate option preserves a herd that its own biology has condemned.

The animals concentrate in Antioquia, around Puerto Triunfo, where the ranch once stood. Four regional bodies were to share the work, covering wetlands and river systems across four departments.

The remaining route is confinement, and the ministry has priced it. It means sterilising every individual and holding them until natural death, in enclosures built for an animal nearly three times the size of a cow, with a risk of overcrowding.

The whole April package, culling and confinement and relocation together, came to about twenty-six thousand dollars per animal targeted. The smarter solution now promised carries no number at all, and the hippos breed all year with nothing to hunt them.

How many Escobar hippos are there?

The environment ministry estimates more than two hundred, projecting five hundred by 2030 and close to a thousand by 2035 without control measures.

Why not send them abroad?

Seven countries have refused, citing legal bars, cost and the herd’s low genetic diversity. Firm offers totalled fifteen places.

Is the cull definitely cancelled?

The minister designate says so, but he takes office on 7 August. The current protocols remain in force until then.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many hippos are there now, and how large could the population grow?

The Colombian ministry currently counts more than 200 hippos in the herd. Projections estimate the population could reach approximately 500 by 2030 and nearly 1,000 by 2035.

Why has lethal control not been carried out despite expert recommendations?

Technicians advised removing 33 hippos per year starting in 2022, but not a single animal has been culled since then. The incoming environment minister acknowledged the issue is too publicly sensitive, which has contributed to the ongoing inaction.

What is the inbreeding situation among the Escobar hippos?

All hippos in the Colombian herd descend from just four original animals. The herd already shows physical deformities as a result of this severe inbreeding.