Pablo Escobar's four pet hippos escaped after his death and bred freely in the Colombian jungle — creating an ecological crisis no one has figured out how to stop.
In the early 1980s, Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar imported four hippopotamuses — three females and one male — from a wildlife center in Dallas, Texas, to stock his private zoo at his sprawling Hacienda Nápoles estate between Medellín and Bogotá. They were among the more exotic attractions at a compound that also housed elephants, giraffes, and exotic birds, all purchased with cocaine money.
When Escobar was killed by Colombian security forces in December 1993, his estate was abandoned and the Colombian government struggled to relocate his animals. Most were moved to zoos — but the hippos, weighing up to 3,000 pounds each, were deemed too dangerous and expensive to transport. They were simply left behind on the unmanaged estate, where they eventually broke through the fences and entered the wild.
Without natural predators, the hippos thrived beyond anyone's expectations. By 2007 the population had grown to 16; by 2014, 40; by 2019, between 90 and 120 individuals roaming an area of over 2,250 square kilometers along the Magdalena River. A 2023 study found the number had already reached 181–215 — and projections suggest there could be thousands within a few decades.
Ecologists are alarmed. Hippos are not native to the Americas and their ecological impact on the Magdalena River basin is significant — displacing native species like manatees, caimans, and otters, altering river hydrology by bulldozing through vegetation, and depositing massive amounts of nutrients into waterways that trigger algae blooms and fish die-offs. Several critically endangered turtle species endemic to the river basin are particularly at risk.
Efforts to control the population have been slow, expensive, and politically fraught. In 2009 the government authorized the killing of one hippo, named Pepe — but when a photo of his body surrounded by 15 armed men went public, it triggered nationwide protests and the culling program was abandoned. In 2017, a single wild male was captured and castrated at a cost of $50,000. By 2021 a chemical sterilization program using a vaccine called GonaCon had begun, but at a pace far too slow to outpace the population growth.
The hippos have acquired an unlikely fan base. Local communities along the Magdalena River have embraced them as tourist attractions, and a landmark 2022 lawsuit argued that the hippos had legal rights as individuals — an extraordinary legal claim that drew international attention. In 2023 Colombia proposed exporting 70 hippos to India and Mexico, but the logistics and cost remain staggering. Escobar's four hippos may yet become one of the most consequential — and bizarre — ecological legacies of the 20th century.