More than 20 years after Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar died in a gunfight with police, a strange legacy survives him: his pet hippos. Look out of the window in the dead of night in the village of Doradal and you may see one plodding down the street.
Police killed or locked up Escobar's drug gang, but not the hippos in his private zoo. Left to themselves on his Napoles Estate, they bred to become what's said to be the biggest wild hippo herd outside Africa -- a local curiosity and a hazard.
Just outside the village, Diego Alejandro Rojas, 19, shines a flashlight on a black mass grazing among the tall grass. Its eyes catch the light and shine like glowworms. "They come from the Napoles Estate along the canal after nightfall," Rojas says. "They are like the village pets. I'm more afraid of the snakes than the hippos."
David Echeverri Lopez, a biologist from the regional environmental corporation Cornare, says it is the biggest herd of wild hippopotamuses outside of Africa. The have thrived in this green spot in northern Colombia, but Echeverri warns they are a hazard for the local area and its environment. They break fences and defecate in the rivers. Escobar bought four hippos from a zoo in California and flew them to his ranch in the early 1980s, Echeverri says. He now estimates there are about 35 in the area.
Like his gang, hippos can very fierce, naturalists say. "If they get aggressive they pose a risk to Colombian biodiversity. They could displace native fauna" such as otters and endangered manatees, Echeverri says. They threaten fishing too. "They pollute the water courses where they defecate," Echeverri says.
Since hippos can live for up to 60 years, authorities are seeking a way to manage the herd over the long term. So for now, instead of going to war against the hippos as the Colombia police did against their late master, Echeverri and Leon are working just to contain them.
