Pablo Escobar’s hippos: A growing problem (2014)
bbc.comReading this as an Australian, where managing invasive species is a multi-million dollar problem, this is just...extraordinary.
> "It's just like this crazy wildlife experiment that we're left with," says San Diego University ecologist Rebecca Lewison. "Gosh! I hope this goes well."
You...hope this goes well? How about you shoot them all, while there's still a countable number of them? It's not like there's a conservation question here. There's almost no genetic diversity in the herd, and hippos aren't threatened in Africa.
The difference is that in Australia you don't have whole towns worth of people coming out to protect their cute, floppy animals .. with guns and machetes. So, there's that.
Reminds me of another Hippo story, the U.S. Hippo Bill that was proposed to farm Hippos. http://www.wired.com/2013/12/hippopotamus-ranching/
This points to the forms that truly effective terrorism will take in future. Why bomb a few places in your target country, when instead you could just plant a few hundred genetically-engineered Tyrannosaurus eggs? Mayhem for years! Way to make your mark Pablo!
You can also just release a few rabbits. They breed pretty quickly [1] and will destroy local ecosystems. See: Australia.
(Also, happy Straya Day)
It's already been done with agricultural pests.
Thought this would be an interesting thought experiment for engineering the best solution to the problem. I guess since Colombia isn't that rich it would have to be feasible economically, too.
He put a ding in the universe.
Two words: Hippo Bacon
FTA: Valderrama doesn't recommend eating the meat, in case it is infected with a transmittable disease - one dead hippo was found to be carrying leptospirosis which can cause meningitis
As a former Tampa Bay Mutiney fan, no bacon just piles disappointment upon disappointment. This story would be hippos in World Cup wigs cooler if the Carlos "Still the best player ever to play in the MLS" Valderramma had, in post footballing retirement, become a veterinarian managing Escobar's legacy.