'Cocaine hippos' in India? Experts flag their high maintenance cost

When the Colombian authorities seized Pablo Escobar’s sprawling estate Hacienda Napoles after the ‘the king of cocaine’ was shot dead by the police in 1993, they found it to be home to multiple exotic beasts from Africa -- from elephants to ostriches and giraffes, and of course, four hippopotami. Though most animals were moved to new homes in zoos, the four hippopotami — three females and one male — were left on the ranch; they escaped, thrived, and started to breed. Today they number around 160.

In a bid to avoid an ecological disaster, the South American nation has floated a new strategy for these feral hippos: Shipping some of them abroad, including 60 to India.

This move comes after Colombia’s failed experiments of castration and culling. Though hippos are adaptive and can survive in India, experts flag their high maintenance cost, and lack of adequate infrastructure here.

The Colombian authorities, according to reports, have reached out to the ‘Greens Zoological Rescue and Rehabilitation Kingdom (GZRRC)’ in Jamnagar, Gujarat, for the rehabilitation of these feral hippos.

According to the 2019 master layout plan for GZRRC, the park had 7,200 sqm (1.7 acres) of proposed paddock (pasturing) area for hippos. The park had a plan of accommodating 12 hippos; it currently has two hippos.

An e-mail query sent to GZRRC remained unanswered. However, a wildlife conservationist said: “GZRRC cannot accommodate all these hippos. If the plan of adding more hippos is pushed through, it will result in endangering other species as it did in Colombia.”

Colombia has declared hippopotami, a toxic invasive species as they threaten the country’s natural ecosystems, biodiversity, and human safety. Experts fear that as the hippos are exotic animals and cannot be left in the wild, they will be a burden on the zoos which are not ready to accommodate more such beasts.

Sabitha Bai AS, administrative officer, Museums and Zoos, Kerala, said the state has no plan to get more hippos as they already have more than three. “At present, we are not planning to add any new numbers. In fact, we want to reduce the number of hippos by sharing it with some other zoo,” Sabitha said.

The hippo population in India increased from 65 in 1995 to 85 in 2022, according to the Annual Inventory of Animals in Indian Zoos.

Asad R Rahmani, a member of the governing body of Wetlands International South Asia, while highlighting that India has a sufficient hippo population, said: “Why should India share the burden of somebody else’s problem? These hippos belong to Sub-Saharan Africa and they should be sent back to their native place. In India, they will go to zoos and not into the wild.”

Hippos, also known as the “river horse”, live along rivers and lakes throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. However, based on the small fragmented tooth unearthed in Madhya Pradesh, researchers claim that India was home to hippopotami nearly 5.9 million to 9,000 years ago. They entered Eurasia from Africa, and then diversified in South Asia before going extinct.

 Keeping hippos is also difficult because they come under the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

Experts believe that instead of allowing all 60 hippos to Gujarat, the government should intervene and ask the Central Zoo Authority to help prepare a plan where hippos could be given to zoos, based on their requirements.

“Forcing hippos in zoos would create problems for other endangered species. Therefore, the government should allow these hippos into India only if it has a requirement request from the zoo, and not on the Colombian government's request,” said an expert.