Following the forced sterilization, 70 heads will be sent away for $3.7 million in 2023, and the hippos left behind by the big drug lord Pablo Escobar still give Colombia a headache!
So someone proposed: why not eat to solve the problem?
"Eating hippos" sounds weird, but historically, the United States really had the idea of raising hippos to eat. That is, the hippopotamus almost became the main meat livestock of the Americans.
In 1884, water hyacinth won the love of local residents at an exhibition in New Orleans and became the most popular cultivated plant.
However, this plant is native to South America and is alien to the United States, and it grows like crazy in a blessed exotic land. In less than 20 years, water hyacinth has evolved from a cultivated plant to an invasive species.
In 1910, the explosion of American cities led to a shortage of cheap meat, and the United States fell into a "meat shortage crisis".
So, someone proposed: we can start a hippo ranch to solve the problem of lack of meat.
The main proponent was Brusad, Louisiana, who on March 24, 1910, presented the project for the "Hippo Ranch" at a conference.
He believes that raising hippos is a good project to kill two birds with one stone, first, hippos can eat the water hyacinth that is flooded in the water, and secondly, hippos are large, with an average weight of up to 1.5 tons, and the meat yield is very high.
In order to convince more people, he also invited 3 expert platforms:
Owen, a researcher at the Department of Agriculture, believes that hippopotamus farming will not take up major farmland and will increase the supply of meat by at least 1 million tons per year;
Burnham was a soldier who, when he was stationed in Africa, realized that hippos had great potential for breeding;
Duquesne, a native of Africa, said that before the protection of hippos in Africa, it was common for locals to eat hippos, and the hippopotamus meat tasted very good, between pork and beef, especially the breast meat, which was marinated and very delicious.
For this reason, the New York Times also euphemistically described hippopotamus meat as "lake beef bacon"!
Historically, this bill has been called the "American Hippo Act", and supporters believe that as long as this bill is passed and then $250,000 is invested, then there will be no meatless situation in the United States.
At that time, there were many supporters of this bill, but in the end, it was shelved and not implemented.
Because some scientists refuted Owen's statement, believing that water hyacinth has high moisture and low nutritional value, this kind of food is a weight loss meal for hippos, and hippos will not like this food.
And hippos, just looking honest, are actually very dangerous and not easy to tame.
Indeed, from the current point of view, it is thanks to the fact that the United States did not agree to raise hippos.
Otherwise, the United States would have become the first country to open a hippopotamus ranch, and it would have been the first country to get out of control.
Colombia, which is now helpless against hippos, is the best example.
From 4 to more than 100, the hippos left behind by the big drug lord are out of control, and Colombia has a headache!
In the 80s of the 20th century, Colombia's big drug lord Pablo Escobar imported four hippos from Africa to live in the private zoo he founded.
After his death in 1993, these four hippos, one male and three female, were released in situ because they were too large and difficult to handle, and they were in a state of wild growth.
In Colombia, there is no world for hippos, there is abundant rain, there is no dry season, and there is plenty of food, which makes these four hippos grow quickly and have amazing fecundity.
Generally speaking, African male hippos can only breed at the age of 9, while Colombian hippos can be "dads" at the age of 3, and the fertile age is at least 6 years earlier.
Under uncontrolled breeding, hippos are growing in number.
In 1993, there were 4 heads, in 2007 there were 16 heads, in 2014 there were 40 heads, in 2019 there were 120 heads, and in 2023 there were almost 200 heads. At this rate, the number of hippos will reach more than 1,000 by 2035.
In order to control the hippopotamus population, several measures have been taken, but almost all of them have failed!
Cull. In 2009, a hippopotamus named Pepe was killed by hunters because he was too "naughty". The plan to kill the hippopotamus was terminated after protests from domestic and international animal protection groups and local residents objected to the killing of "such a cute" animal.
Birth control, the first birth control was in the traditional way, first grasped and then castrated, but due to the high cost, it was later stopped. It is said that it costs $50,000 to dispose of a hippopotamus.
In 2021, the use of chemical birth control was started, and the hippo was given a vaccine to make it unable to have children, but the activity was also opposed by many people and was forced to stop.
In March 2023, Colombia had to "send hippos" everywhere to relieve the pressure, spending at least $3.5 million to transport 70 hippos for transit to India and Mexico.
Then in November, it was announced that 40 hippos would be spayed each year, with an estimated cost of $10,000 per hippos.
With such painstaking and painstaking control, there are still 169 hippos now, in 2024.
These hippos occupy the main rivers and eat and pull non-stop.
Its greatest harm to the ecology is that it pulls a large amount of manure in the water, resulting in harmful algal blooms in the water system and the death of a large number of aquatic animals.
At the same time, hippos are also frequent in and out of human areas and have shown aggressive behavior.
Local residents are also scared and hope that the relevant authorities can solve the problem as soon as possible, after all, no one wants a "uncontrolled" and "aggressive" large animal next to their home.
At last
In general, the United States has escaped by abandoning hippopotamus breeding.
Colombia is now like a "bunch of ancestors" that cannot be killed, and will be prosecuted by protests; if it is not managed well, it will cost money and effort, and the results will not be good; no matter what, it will be blamed.
Eating is even more impossible, hippos all over the world are now protected animals!
In the end, it can only advocate the peaceful coexistence of humans and hippos like other urban animals!