TORONTO – When Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar died in a hail of bullets, he left behind not just a broken drug cartel, but a quartet of African hippos.
In the 1980s, Escobar smuggled four hippos into Colombia to join a collection of exotic animals at his multi-million-dollar estate outside Medellin.
Left to fend for themselves in the wake of his death, these roly-poly looking, but extremely dangerous beasts (responsible for more deaths in Africa than lions or crocodiles) broke out. Today, breeding at twice their typical rate and with no natural predators keeping them in check, more than 60 now roam the Colombian wilds, wreaking havoc in villages at night and threatening the ecosystem that feeds into the Magdalena River, Colombia’s main watershed.
This is the extraordinary story told in The Hunt for Escobar’s Hippos, premiering Wednesday, August 26 at 9 p.m. on Blue Ant Media’s Smithsonian Channel Canada and at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Smithsonian Channel in the U.S.
“Surprisingly, Colombians adore their hippos despite the dangers, and it’s illegal to cull them. Left with no other option, Colombian veterinarian Dr. Gina Serna is tasked with capturing and sterilizing them – an operation extremely difficult to perform in the wild of Colombia. The situation of the Colombian hippopotamus is an ecological time bomb that urgently needs to be diffused. As the largest foreign invader in Colombia, these formidable creatures pose not only a serious threat to human life, but also to the country’s wildlife and native ecosystem. Aggressively frontal and territorial, the consequences could be catastrophic,” reads the broadcaster’s press release.
