Authorities in northwestern Colombia said they rescued a newborn hippopotamus found alone by fishermen on the banks of a river and showing signs of malnutrition.
Colombia has around 200 so-called “cocaine hippos” living in the wild, according to the Environment Ministry, all of which descended from a colony brought to South America by slain cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar.
Fishermen found the small hippo separated from its mother and hidden in the bushes along the riverbank in a rural area of the Puerto Nare municipality in Antioquia, said Javier Valencia, director of the regional environmental authority, in a statement on Tuesday.
Veterinarians treated it for “advanced dehydration and malnutrition,” according to a statement.
After being stabilized, the animal was transferred to a hippo sanctuary at Hacienda Napoles, the estate previously owned by Escobar and which is now a theme park.
Colombia government
Escobar imported four hippos in the 1980s for his private zoo at the hacienda.
After the Medellin cartel leader’s death in 1993, the animals escaped and settled along the banks of the Magdalena River, where they have disrupted the ecosystem and even attacked local residents.
Independent journalist Audrey Huse, who has lived in Colombia for years, previously told CBS News that because the hippos roam freely, they end up killing fish and threatening endemic species like manatees, otters and turtles.
“Because they have no natural predators here, as they would in Africa, the population is booming and it’s affecting the local ecosystem,” Huse said. “Because they are such large animals, they consume considerable amounts of grassland and produce significant waste, which then poisons the rivers.”
They are now considered an invasive species and are destabilizing native ecosystems, prompting the government this year to approve a plan to cull around 80 of them after attempts to curb their reproduction through sterilization failed.
The government previously arranged for the possible transfer of hippos to overseas sanctuaries. But the cost of deporting the hippos is also expensive — an estimated $3.5 million.
It is the largest hippo colony outside Africa.