In the 1980s, the drug lord organized for three female hippos and just one male to be introduced to his 5,500-acre (2,225-hectare) estate, Hacienda Napoles, in Colombia.

Just after his dying in a shootout with authorities in 1993, most of the exotic animals had been relocated or died. But the hippos were being abandoned at the estate due to the price and logistical issues linked with transporting 3-ton animals and the violence that plagued the space at the time.

Although Escobar is lengthy long gone, the hippos continue to be, and have flourished even with official efforts to management their copy – which includes doing vasectomies on the males.

The scientists alert that the hippos pose a important menace to the area’s biodiversity and could lead to fatal encounters in between the enormous animals and individuals.

They say hippo numbers could get to all around 1,500 by 2035 if absolutely nothing is completed.

To avoid this, the experts have referred to as for the hippos to be killed.

“I believe that it is a single of the finest worries of invasive species in the world,” explained Nataly Castelblanco-Martinez, an ecologist at the University of Quintana Roo in Mexico and direct author of the group’s examine.

The plan of killing some in the herd has currently drawn some criticism and is probably to see additional. There was an outcry yrs back when a few hippos wandered from the Escobar compound and were being creating troubles and one was killed by hunters despatched immediately after the animals.

The people in this rural space have embraced the hippos as their individual, in element due to the fact of the tourist pounds they provide in. College pupils are applied to strolling previous a signal that reads “Threat — hippopotamus present.” For outsiders, it can be a puzzling bond, considering the animals destroy a lot more men and women for each year in Africa than any other wildlife species.

But the gurus say the government’s endeavor to preserve down figures by sterilising some hippos just is just not more than enough.

“Everyone asks, ‘Why is this occurring?’ Nicely, think about a city of 50 persons and you carry out a vasectomy on 1 guy and in two decades on a different guy, of course, that is not likely to manage the copy of the complete inhabitants,” Ms Castelblanco-Martinez explained.

Ms Castelblanco mentioned she understood the attractiveness of hippos, even describing a infant hippo as “the most gorgeous issue in the planet,” but she extra that the conversations over their long term in Colombia should not be ruled by heat feelings the animals make.

“We have other invasive species in Colombia that have been through standard protocols, and no just one ever makes a fuss since they are fishing lionfish,” she explained referring to a fish native to the Indo-Pacific that is now an invasive species in the Atlantic Ocean. “You cannot even communicate about (culling hippos) due to the fact the rejection is staggering. … I am remaining referred to as a assassin.”