Colombia's "Cocaine Hippo" Problem Highlighted After Fatal Road Accident.

1 min read
Source: The Guardian
Colombia's "Cocaine Hippo" Problem Highlighted After Fatal Road Accident.
Photo: The Guardian
TL;DR

Colombia's first hippopotamus-caused road traffic accident has prompted calls for action on the invasive species, descendants of four animals imported from Africa by drug lord Pablo Escobar in the 1980s. With no predators in the Colombian countryside, the hippo population has multiplied into a plague of 150, becoming a threat to local people and a headache for Colombia's environment ministry. Ecologists warn that they must be culled before they cause more irreversible damage to the delicate ecosystem of the Magdalena river or cause their first human fatality.

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