Locals fret as Colombia to declare hippos invasive species

[Eugene]

2. 4 hippos became 130 on their way to becoming 1,400 by 2035.

They eat river vegetation, and they have no natural predators in Colombia nor African droughts to keep them in check.

Pablo Escobar: Why scientists want to kill Colombia's hippos (BBC - Feb. 11, 2021)

-snip-

Numbers are projected to only get bigger. Ms Castelblanco and her peers say the population will reach over 1,400 specimens as early as 2034 without a cull - all of them descended from the original group of a male and three females. In the study, they envisaged an ideal scenario in which 30 animals need to be culled or castrated every year to stop that happening.

Ms Castelblanco explains that the "cocaine hippos" have seized an evolutionary opportunity. They do not have natural predators in South America, meaning they can reproduce much more easily.

The weather also helps: in Africa, the population is in part controlled by droughts that do not take place in Colombia. Indeed, conditions in their South American home seem so ideal for the hippos that studies show they start reproducing at earlier ages, she said.

Scientists studying the hippos' environmental impact believe they could affect the local ecosystem in a number of ways: from displacing native species already under threat of extinction, like the manatee, to altering the chemical compositions of waterways, which could endanger fisheries - though other studies suggest they might help the environment too.

-snip-

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-56011594