What to do about the Colombian Hippos.

[Catherine]

There are hippos in Colombia because drug dealer, Pablo Escobar imported them, along with a number of other exotic animals.
When he died the hippos got loose and they have thrived in Colombia.
They are rapidly increasing their numbers. 

Attempts were made to cull them, but there were problems with that.
They developed a sort of Trap-Neuter-Release program for the hippos.
It is terribly expensive and the hippos are breeding faster than they can be neutered.

Now the suggestion is to send them elsewhere. Sanctuaries, zoos and game farms could take a lot of hippos.


https://www.theguardian.com/environment/...export-aoe

Something has to be done. I think shipping them out is a possible idea, but they are probably multiplying faster than they can be caught.
Maybe there needs to be a massive coordinated effort to do a number of things at once. Definitely they need to ship out the non neutered hippos.
Something has to be done to control the hippo population.

Many countries in the world have struggles with invasive species. Hippos might be the most difficult species to deal with because of their size.