Many countries around the world deal with issues caused by invasive species. Some cases are more famous than others, like Australia’s cane toads or Florida’s pythons.
But none of these invasive species have quite as absurd a story as Colombia’s hippopotamuses.
For more than 30 years, the Colombian government has been at odds with an invasive population of African hippos. The hippos were originally brought to Colombia by narcotics dealer Pablo Escobar as exotic pets, which is the reason for the nickname “cocaine hippos.”
And now they have once again gained popularity due to the Colombian government announcing they would be euthanizing them for population control. As expected, many people were opposed to this idea, but Colombia’s doing so is more nuanced than most people assume.
By the early 1980s, Pablo Escobar had established the Medellín Cartel, becoming one of the most powerful drug smugglers in the world. Escobar decided to build his own private zoo at Hacienda Nápoles, his private estate. A variety of exotic animals were imported, including four African hippopotamuses. They lived on his estate for over a decade until Escobar died in 1993. After that, the Colombian government relocated the exotic animals to other zoos, except for the four hippos, because of the incredible difficulty and expense of moving them. At some point it’s assumed the hippos escaped into the river systems in the area. There are no natural predators of African hippos outside of where they originate from, so in a natural resource-rich environment such as Colombia, their population inevitably skyrocketed.
The first major conflict involving the “cocaine hippos” was in 2009. A male hippopotamus named Pepe had left his river of residence and began approaching humans dangerously close. He began to roam in populated areas for a time, where he was eventually killed by authorities who feared he could have been a danger to the people in the area. This sparked outrage among environmental activists, as Pepe hadn’t yet harmed anyone. Locals believed that he wouldn’t have at any point, and his death was unnecessary.
Starting around the 2010s the hippo population became a concern to scientists, having grown from the original four to over 100, and researchers were beginning to see the hippos’ harmful effect. Their physical destruction polluted rivers and lakes they resided in, extending further out into the ecosystem. The pollution and habitat alteration are terrible for native species in the area, and most are forced to move elsewhere or die.
Colombia has been brainstorming ways to solve the critical hippo problem. As of now, there are over 200 hippopotamuses in Colombia’s rivers. It’s not only an issue for the environment and native species, but also for the people who live near them. Hippos are one of the most dangerous and aggressive land mammals; 500 people in Africa are killed by them yearly. And as the Cocaine Hippo’s population grows more and more, they begin reaching the edges of human cities.
Two solutions that the Colombian government has implemented are relocation and sterilization. However, both of these are logistically difficult to do and are quite expensive. The hippos are too genetically distinct now to relocate outside of zoos and survive, and sterilization doesn’t keep native species and habitats safe from the existing ones. Both plans are slow to affect significant change, and are unlikely to reduce the population fast enough over time. Thus, Colombia is left with one method of control, and that’s euthanasia. In April of 2026, the Columbian government stated its goal of euthanizing an initial 80 hippos, to widespread public disapproval. As of now, the future of these unfortunate hippopotamuses is uncertain; time can only tell if another solution to the problem is possible.
