Pablo Escobar hippos: From drug lord’s assortment to abroad sanctuaries for US$3.5 million (video)

Pablo Escobar was a infamous Colombian drug lord who turned one of many wealthiest and strongest criminals in history: he was also an animal lover.
During his heyday in the Eighties, he famously owned a big collection of unique animals, including elephants, giraffes, and hippopotami. If Escobar was a problem for the authorities when he was alive then so are his remaining hippos.
After he died in 1993, his collection of 70 African hippos had been left to roam free in the Antioquia area of Colombia, causing an ecological downside for the nation. Now, the Colombian government plans to relocate the hippos to abroad sanctuaries at a cost of US$3.5m, reported Aljazeera.
Escobar’s Hacienda Napoles, where the hippos lived, has become a vacationer attraction since his dying. However, the hippos’ presence has led to considerations over their impression on the environment. The hippos are a territorial species, weighing up to three tonnes, and wouldn’t have natural predators in Colombia. Their faeces change the composition of rivers, which might affect the habitat of manatees and capybaras.
To handle the issue, final yr the Colombian authorities declared the hippos a toxic invasive species and attempted a sterilisation programme to manage their inhabitants, but it failed. The plan now is to relocate 60 of the hippos to the Greens Zoological Rescue & Rehabilitation Kingdom in Gujarat, India, and one other 10 to zoos and sanctuaries in Mexico.
Ernesto Zazueta, the owner of the Ostok Sanctuary in Sinaloa, Mexico, one of the locations for the hippos, said…
“The entire operation should cost around US$3.5m.”
The hippos will be lured into pens before being positioned in special crates for transportation.

The relocation is seen as a essential measure to save heaps of the hippos’ lives and defend Colombia’s biodiversity. Otherwise, the surroundings ministry would have had to consider culling the animals. Other nations, similar to Ecuador, the Philippines, and Botswana, have expressed their willingness to take the hippos.
Invitation only of his hippos is now in the palms of animal welfare activists and government officials who hope to make sure their security and protect the setting.
Escobar engaged in a shootout with police and soldiers on a rooftop, which led to his demise on December 2, 1993, in Medellin. He was forty four years outdated at the time, having celebrated his 44th birthday just one day prior. Interestingly, 5 months earlier than his demise, he had been listed in Forbes magazine’s rating of the wealthiest individuals in the world for the seventh time..