Khaberni - Colombian officials have approved a plan to execute dozens of male and female hippos that roam freely in a central region of the country, where they have become a threat to villagers and are displacing local species from their environment.
Media reports indicated that the decision came after years of the infamous drug trafficker Pablo Escobar bringing the first groups of them to the country.
The Minister of Environment, Irene Velez, said that previous methods of controlling their numbers have been costly and unsuccessful, including castrating some of the animals or relocating them to zoos.
Velez explained that the new measure will involve up to 80 animals, but she did not specify a date for the start of the hunting operations.
Velez added, "If we do not do this, we will not be able to control their numbers, and we must take this action to preserve our ecosystems."
Colombia is the only country outside of Africa that has wild populations of hippos, which originate from four animals brought by Escobar to the country in the 1980s when he was building a private zoo at Hacienda Napoles, a vast farm in the Magdalena River valley that included a private airstrip and served as his countryside headquarters.
