How this drug lord created a hippo problem in Colombia — Transcript

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1. 0:00Hey, you know Pablo Escobar, the drug lord.
2. 0:03Yeah, I’m at his old house right now here
3. 0:05in rural Colombia.
4. 0:06And I’m looking for some hippos.
5. 0:16But wait, no no no, hippos aren’t supposed to be here.
6. 0:19They’re not supposed to be here. Hippos exist here, not in Colombia.
7. 0:30Pablo Escobar was one of the most infamous and most successful drug lords in history.
8. 0:36The guy had an entire empire of cocaine production and trafficking throughout the world.
9. 0:41“One of the world’s most wanted men, drug trafficker Pablo Escobar is also accused of
10. 0:45murder and terrorism.” And with all of his drug money, he wanted
11. 0:49to build a private zoo.
12. 0:51He imported giraffes and exotic animals from
13. 0:54all over the world, including four hippos.
14. 1:06When Pablo Escobar was shot and killed in the early '90’s,
15. 1:09the government came in and reclaimed this estate.
16. 1:11And they took all the animals and distributed them out to other zoos,
17. 1:15except for the hippopotamuses.
18. 1:17They didn’t touch the hippos. They kind of just let them go free into the
19. 1:20swamp.
20. 1:21These hippos are now a ticking time bomb.
21. 1:34Today there are 50 of these hippos.
22. 1:39They proliferated very quickly and they are now a big problem for the Colombian
23. 1:44government and a threat to these locals.
24. 1:46To understand why this is such a big deal, you have to understand hippos.
25. 1:53Hippos are huge mammals native to the continent of Africa and they’re pretty aggressive.
26. 1:58Some call hippos the most ferocious mammals on the planet.
27. 2:09But wait, aren’t hippos cute, cuddly animals?
28. 2:12There’s that one scene in “Fantasia” where the hippos are dancing ballet with the
29. 2:16crocodiles and it’s the crocodiles that seem scary,
30. 2:19not the hippos.
31. 2:22Well, the reality is actually the exact opposite.
32. 2:25Hippos routinely kill crocodiles.
33. 2:33More people are killed by hippos in Africa
34. 2:35every year than any other wild animal.
35. 2:41Escobar’s estate has since been turned into
36. 2:44a theme park where you can kind of wander around and look
37. 2:47at different animals.
38. 2:48And the hippopotamuses then became a
39. 2:51part of the spectacle. It’s actually a pretty cool park,
40. 2:54if I were staying here a few days, I would totally hang out here.
41. 3:04The audio track that’s playing that’s explaining these hippopotamuses,
42. 3:07frames them as this positive
43. 3:10experiment in conservation.
44. 3:20That they’re able to live in a natural environment
45. 3:22and thrive.
46. 3:30But I’m going to go talk to a biologist
47. 3:32who actually has a very different take.
48. 3:47So the problem here is that the park can’t actually contain the hippos.
49. 3:51They’ve actually started wandering and settling down in rivers and ponds hundreds of miles
50. 3:55away.
51. 3:55Coming up to another group here,
52. 3:58it’s just three of them that hang out in this other pond.
53. 4:03So David and his team are tasked with figuring out a solution to this problem
54. 4:07of how to stop these hippos from moving around and what to do with the population as it grows.
55. 4:12But this is really hard stuff, mainly because no one’s ever had to do this before.
56. 4:28Here’s why this is a big problem.
57. 4:29What you’re looking at here is what David
58. 4:32calls:
59. 4:34Yes, this is hippo heaven.
60. 4:36In Africa, there’s usually droughts that stave off the proliferation of the hippos.
61. 4:43Here there aren’t droughts.
62. 4:46Without a natural predator or any sort of
63. 4:48competition, they’re sexually active earlier on in their lives,
64. 4:51they eat more, they are just living their best lives.
65. 5:00Colombia is one of the most biodiverse places on Earth
66. 5:03and a growing invasive species population means a disruption to that diversity.
67. 5:08Invasive species are a top cause for a loss in biodiversity
68. 5:12and biologists have already started to notice that the hippos’ presence is reshaping these
69. 5:16ecosystems.
70. 5:19But it’s not just a threat to the ecosystems.
71. 5:21Sometimes the hippos will come into town.
72. 5:29As the hippo population spreads, they’re
73. 5:31coming in contact with humans more and more often.
74. 5:34And David worries the locals here aren’t aware just how dangerous these animals can be.
75. 5:54So far no one has gotten hurt in one of these encounters,
76. 5:56but with the hippo population growing so quickly,
77. 5:59it won’t be long before an accident happens.
78. 6:02So David and his team have come up with a few strategies to tackle this problem.
79. 6:05First, they tried to physically contain them with fences and rock walls.
80. 6:28Okay, so fences don’t work.
81. 6:30Next, they tried to castrate the males, stop
82. 6:32them from reproducing.
83. 6:33But tranquilizing and castrating a hippo is dangerous, time-consuming, and expensive.
84. 6:49One solution is what you do to any big, dangerous invasive species
85. 6:53when they start to take over an ecosystem that they’re not native to.
86. 6:57You exterminate them.
87. 7:08This didn’t go well.
88. 7:09The hunting team went out, killed one of the hippos and then they posted this photo,
89. 7:14which sparked a national outcry.
90. 7:16People did not like the idea of these hippos
91. 7:20being hunted and killed.
92. 7:47The best solution, and the one David is really pushing for, is to just
93. 7:51move these hippos away.
94. 8:04But until that happens, Pablo Escobar’s
95. 8:06old estate will keep selling tickets to people who want to see the hippos.
96. 8:10David and his team will continue to struggle to contain the situation
97. 8:14and the hippos, the real winners in all of this, will continue to bask in the reality
98. 8:18that they truly do live in hippo heaven.