Pablo Escobar Cocaine Hippos

Pablo Escobar Cocaine Hippos – by Liam Sweeny.

Some of the fun of looking for strange stories is in finding the name that basically looks like you took a handful of words and threw them against the wall, and somehow they stuck. Here’s one for you, “Pablo Escobar’s Cocaine Hippos.”

Yes, we will unpack this.

When Pablo Escobar was at the top of his game in the 80s, he was clocking $420 million a week. What happens when you have that kid of cheddar? You buy a zoo, of course. Lions, elephants, giraffes, and to top off the menagerie, hippos.

A thing about hippos. They’re cute in childrens books and on nurses’ scrubs, but real hippos are no. effing. Joke. They are territorial, big, fast, powerful, and can kill a lion if they’re in the mood for cat.

And that’s all fine and well if you’re going to cage them and keep them happy and fed. But when Escobar got shot to death in 1993, the authorities, in getting all of the zoo animals replaced, missed four. Four hippos, you got it. And they just went off in the woods and got feral.

And right now, that four is one hundred and sixty nine. And growing. They say that by 2035, they’ll have a thousand.

These “cocaine hippos” are now considered an invasive species in Colombia. They crap in the water and change the chemical nature, feeding red algae blooms that can hurt fish and people too. And at some point, these hippos are going to kill someone. They kill 500 Africans per year. And they push everything the hell out. Cabybaras, manatees – who doesn’t love the marshmallow of the sea? Hippos, that’s who.

The plan is to castrate them. Well, it was, but they’re big beasts, and their testicles are inside the body, so that’s a no-g0. They’re looking to sterilize them, but at ten grand a pop, they may need to reanimate Escobar’s corpse to help pay for it.

If you’re stupid rich, don’t get a zoo. Find some other way.

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