Thanks for watching! Be sure to check out Tasha's video on the tech that's helping the fight against wildfires over on MobileSyrup: ruclips.net/video/cofK5zT_OrE/видео.htmlsi=vWU4gMkBADoAADAS. They upload new educational videos about the world of tech every other week, don't forget to subscribe!
Largely unknown fact is that there was almost an invasive hippo problem here in the US too. In 1910, Robert Broussard, Congressman from Louisiana proposed releasing hippos into the bayous of Louisiana to deal with a water hyacinth problem and a meat supply crisis which were both going on at the time. It didn't pass but did get a lot of support. Think that was one of the worst ideas Congress has ever come up with.
What was he thinking?! That's worse than the idiot drug lord from South America. Zoos which has proper containment, and circuses are enough as they are with hippos, but trying to release them into the wild, or what the idiot did is way worse.
Columbia might want to check in with Australia. The Great Emu War did not end well for us, but they mercifully took pity on the featherless refugees. The Hippos may not be as forgiving. As they have laid claim to the land and are highly territorial of their sovereign rights.
The native ecosystem has already been hugely modified by human actions over that last 10 thousand years though, including all the all the megafaunal extinctions. Genuinely interested in your point of view, because as a lay person, it seems like there are times when restoring megafauna to environments where they existed for millions of years prior to humans, might create healthier ecosystems, rather than the reverse? Interested in what you think about bison in the UK, or Pleistocene Park in Siberia.
The other issue is we can't continue letting humans modify ecosystems because it is resulting in habit loss, various kinds of pollution, and global warming.
@@merryn9000 I'm currently studying in ecology. Yes, reintroducing megafauna could have positive impacts in theory, but in practice unfortunately this is not the case. One of the major flaws in the reintroduction of extinct species is that the ecostystem changes constantly. For recently extinct species this isn't an issue, but here we're talking thousands of years. The ecosystem has adapted to the change, and very few remenents of megafauna (like cultivated avocados) still remain. This is ignoring that hippos aren't the original inhabitants, so their ecological impact is not the same either. It would be like replacing a giraffe with a cow and saying they have the same role in the habitat, where cows graze on grass while giraffes browse tall trees.
Colombians care more about showy invasive exotic species than our own native species. That's the plain truth. We have one of the biggest biodiversity but we do not protect this richness as fervently as we do with these invasive species.
@@alexcontreras6103 Even if, and that's a big fat massive *if* hippos could possibly fill the roles of dead megafauna species, the merry hell they're causing now and would continue to cause in the future would certainly destroy whatever ecosystem they rehabilitate. You're not putting bison back into the great plains of North America here.
@alexcontreras6103 those megafauna grew with and evolved in the environment, not transplanted from halfway across the earth to a foreign environment. Its those lack of adaptations to the local environment and the environments lack of adaptations to it that make these invasive species dangerous.
@@Platoctopus I completely understand that. But the megafauna at one point had to "adapt" and "evolve". Just like all new world monkey's that evolved from one group that floated from Africa on a raft, or cats coming from Asia to America or even T-Rex ancestors that crossed from Asia to America etc etc. This is the story of life, the forgien environment is the crucial building material that propels evolution and change. I understand that change from one species can cause a ripple to the environment, but that's a factor that becomes crucial in environmental resilience. I know many will think I'm crazy from what I am saying but I truly believe in the concept of planting seeds for the future, will not be in my lifetime but lets say we put cheetahs or rhinos in the plains of United states they would start adapting at a rapid rate. Polar bears and Grizzlies separated only 200,000 to 130,000 years ago yet they are extremely different unlike Northern and Southern white rhinos who separated a million years ago yet they are still subspecies why because little did the environment change or land separated them.
As a South African 🇿🇦 I was so puzzled when I first heard that Colombians 🇨🇴 fell in love with hippos when they're so terrifying to us. They're literally one of the most aggressive and unpredictable wild beasts in the world.
Inbreeding takes more than a few generations to take any noticeable effects. And there’s a lot of factors to consider, one of which is certain species not being as sensitive to inbreeding as others; hippos are just built different it seems.
The danger point for a genetic bottleneck is different for different species. Some animals are fine with very few individuals but others require many thousands. The hippos don't need particularly many but what's helping them is the abundant resources of the river system which let them spread out more. With four random individuals they'll probably have some quirks and disorder predispositions but they're probably fine overall. Inbreeding takes a few generations to be a problem.
Lol, a simple question immediately followed by three completely different answers. The short version is... It depends. How related were the three females to each other and the male? If not at all, that's good news for genetic diversity. Also, new stimulus from a new environment and habitat that they're not perfectly adapted to, only comfortable in, can spur changes in DNA that help with diversity. And with their relatively slow reproductive rate (five years to maturity, offspring about every year and a half) it could be a very long time before any negative effects come to light. So the answer for now seems to be "healthy enough," but the diversity of the starting four will determine if that changes in five years, fifty, or never.
Repeat after me "hippos are not native to Colombia" and watch the video. I love wildlife and I am 100% with their protection and care, but I am also realistic when they are part of the problem. Escobar's hippos are a species introduced to the Magdalena River in Colombia, after the drug trafficker's private zoo was dismantled. No one freed them, they simply left them there out of negligence and thought they would die of hunger. The Colombian river region is very different from where these animals originate, it does not have a prolonged dry season and there are no animals beyond man that can prey on a hippopotamus in Colombia. They are extremely territorial animals and can kill anyone they believe is a threat, victims of this have been livestock, local people and river manatees. Their feces alter the chemistry of the river water, altering important processes that are needed to maintain the homeostasis of the ecosystem. In addition, they are high competitors for natural resources with native species, displacing them from their natural distribution. Many will say the argument of "man does more harm" to justify and protect hippos, but they are simply justifying inaction and ecological loss to have moral superiority and feel like protectors of the animals behind a keyboard. Att: a Colombian veterinary doctor.
Spot on my southern friend. In the states we are dealing with feral hogs and pythons! People get mad when Florida has its annual python hunts (which try to get the females by following males during the breeding season) and the fact that it's law in Florida to destroy all invasive species upon finding them. I love animals.... when they are where they belong.
Our negligence has consequences. If you really care about the way a Hippo can affect the ecosystems, stop Humans. We're the biggest invasive species and problem the world has. Leave the hippos alone.
It surprised me that when the animals were taken away from Pablo Escobar's zoo they just let these huge dangers animals that kills hundreds of people on the loose in the waters of Colombia
@@pbp6741 someone or anyone should have point out the fact hippo can travel a lot on land in fact at night a hippo can travel more than 20 miles on land
@@kevinquinonez838 I agree. Most people don’t realise that when the sun goes down hippos come up out of the water to graze. Imagine the Colombians shock the morning after that one hippo exclaimed, “Hey fam, there’s some lush grass over this hill down by that river!”
Columbia might want to check in with Australia. The Great Emu War did not end well for us, but they mercifully took pity on the featherless refugees. The Hippos may not be as forgiving. As they have laid claim to the land and are highly territorial of their sovereign rights.
"hippos are from subsaharan Africa, so what are they doing in South America? The answer its strangely enough... cocaine" Wait what? Are hippos doing cocaine? 😂😂
Alright, let's clear it up, once and for all. They're hippos that were purchased and imported to Colombia with cocaine money. They're not hippos hopped up on cocaine all the time!
Forget about bears can you imagine a hippo actually having enough cocaine and its system to affect its behavior? When angry they naturally seem like they've taken a hit off the pipe
That's what i tought when i read the tittle, Hippo's are already incredibly dangereous, i don't want to imagine what an angry Hippo could do when high on cocaine.
Columbia might want to check in with Australia. The Great Emu War did not end well for us, but they mercifully took pity on the featherless refugees. The Hippos may not be as forgiving. As they have laid claim to the land and are highly territorial of their sovereign rights.
I read the word "cocaine hippo" and assumed that Pablo's original herd of hippos had found a cocaine stash and gone on a rampage. Based on videos I've seen of hippos, I thought "no wonder they've declared war on them"
Honestly, I doubt drugs are going to make a difference for a wild animal. They already have ample adrenaline whenever they're in a fight or flight scenario. It's not like they've been domesticated like people have.
This might have been one of my favourite videos. So well structured and full of information, this is what I love to see. I love that this channel never fails in quality well done!
The theoretical positive of "successful re-wilding" is stretching logic into copium... You can't introduce an apex species into an environment that hasn't had it's like for over 3000 years and not expect things to start collapsing.
There's just so much cope around these stupid hippos. At the alarming rate that they can reproduce and their sheer size, we'll see a reckoning as their proliferate. Just look at feral hogs.
Yeah, especially of the sort that wasn't actually there. The previous megafauna wasn't all /that/ much like hippos and they'd been extinct since the last ice age, possibly because that was just it... that perhaps South America had already moved on from that time but no one thought of that is crazy to me. The ecosystem isn't what it was. And it isn't going to be. They probably wouldn't be able to reintroduce the extinct species there if they managed to somehow GM them into being... why would they think bringing in hippos would work the same or better? Also, the hippos themselves were never there. This isn't rewilding. At best you're substituting an extinct local species with unrelated new ones from half way across the world and hoping it doesn't screw the world over.
Future alien paleontologists would have a super hard time understanding Holocene plate tectonics because suddenly animals start jumping all over the globe, there are hippos in South America and camels in Australia. Imagine the whacky theories that would arise to explain this.
They'd see humans and remnants of technology and microplastic everywhere and pretty quickly figure out what happened. Obviously the humans covered the entire globe in a layer of plastic that allowed the animals to cross over.
If only you could send them back to Africa to re-integrate into the natural hippo population, it would be perfect for them, but that might be expensive too if you can manage to catch them, and very difficult to teach the hippos, what’s like to live in Africa as a hippo
That wouldn't be a good idea as they woukd take back with them all the foreign pathogens they collect in South America like different species of parasites and diseases. African animals are not adapted to deal with these new invaders and so you will also similarly damage the ecosystem in Africa just as the hippos are doing in South America.
Wouldn't there also be an issue of isolated genes and inbreeding? I think relocating the colombian hippos could damage the gene pool of the african hippos if they mix with the colombian ones...
You do know the Australia actually won that in the long term correct they simply switched from the absolutely insane tactic of having the military shoot at them with machine guns to the far more reasonable tactic of simply posting bounties for emus and letting the free market do the rest
I don't see the similarity, Emus are fast and their essential organs are well hidden and hard to aim at. Plus they split up the moment they get ambushed. Hippos are no where near as fast, and are a large targets. Even if they don't want to kill them, it's not hard to get them with tranquilizers. They don't reproduce as fast either.
I’m glad they mentioned the pros and cons of the hippos! I read an article a few years ago that mostly discussed the positive benefits of the hippos and ever since then I’ve thought of them as a mostly good thing. Good to have additional information and perspective
There's a hippo that comes out of the water in our backyard here in Congo. It's been there my whole life and it has never caused any harm to anyone. I've touched it a few times but we're still cautious around it. Other hippos are about 30 miles down the river. I don't know why this one hangs out around here for almost 40 years. I feel bad for the Colombian hippos
So 30 million dollars per castrated/captured hippos? wow, I'd learn basic surgery/hunting and get it done myself in 10 years and have half a billion dollars in my pocket.
We have a problem in Australia with animals that have been introduced from overseas because someone thought they were a good idea. Think rabbits, foxes, horses, camels, cane toads, dogs, cats, pigs, European carp and more. Once they get into the general area they each cause major problems in the environment and are almost impossible to get back under control. Nature set up a balanced environment over the millions of years, and man can bugger it up in only a lifetime. I love wild animals, but each in their own balanced environment.
I agree, as an austrailan I find it heart breaking our delicate ecosystem is being damaged this way, tbh i would get the hippos under control before it get's too out of hand, it's only 160 animals and could set up a hippo sanctuary which is manageable, unlike dealing our millions of feral cats around the country.
Columbia might want to check in with Australia. The Great Emu War did not end well for us, but they mercifully took pity on the featherless refugees. The Hippos may not be as forgiving. As they have laid claim to the land and are highly territorial of their sovereign rights.
some animals attack hippos during the dry season, when they are more vulnerable, anywho, the only animal that i know that will attack and hippo , in water ,will be a crocodile, and i think they mostly try to go for calves
did you hear how many there are, my grand parents had10 grand children, 15 great grandchildren and only two of those want children there are only 3 = 30 offspring in 70yrs, not a family of 180, that is what is scary and that most wild animals can breed till they die@@MrArrow54
I forsee another problem with the Columbian hippo; the longer they are isolated, the more they will adapt to life in South America and given sufficient time (and it doesn't take all that long relatively) they could become a genetically destinct species completely separate from African hippos
Columbia might want to check in with Australia. The Great Emu War did not end well for us, but they mercifully took pity on the featherless refugees. The Hippos may not be as forgiving. As they have laid claim to the land and are highly territorial of their sovereign rights.
Isnt making a Attraction out of an invasive, dangereous species more of the opposite of "eco tourism"? Seriously, defending a dangerous and system altering invasive species is so beyond real wildlife protection, its mind boggling
they should reintroduce most of them to areas in africa where hippos are struggling in order to reinforce genetic diversity, donate a few to zoos around colombia and the world and build a closed hippo reserve with a controled population to keep the tourism.
@@lagiax9668 the same ways zoos move elephants. They were brought there so there's definitely a way to move a hippo. It would be expensive but that's on them. If they had simply done it when there was only 16 it would have been much cheaper. Hard to balk at the expense when their own incompetence led to the issue.
Before this video, I had no idea Escobar got the hippos _for his daughter_ . To me, one of the most dangerous men in the world wanting to own a bunch of one of the most dangerous animals in the world seemed to track. I could follow that logic. Getting them for his daughter, though? Not exactly Father of the Year material there...
There was a story the daughter wanted a unicorn for her birthday party. He hah a horn and wings stapled on a horse that then died of an infection. Inhuman he was.
Hippos are very dangerous . In ancient times , They were the first reason of death for egyptian farmers . Basically, a ton walking tank with a bad attitude and a mouth that cut in half a crocodile or a lion .
This story I ran into a few years ago. Pablo Escobar brought these into Colombia for a Zoo for his children. How he got these dangerous animals there is a mystery to me. Because they are damn dangerous. But it is an invasive species and it is out competing against all native animals in Colombia.
"Until a fisherman crosses the wrong hippo." You say this like humans are up to their old tricks. But in this case the hippo is to blame. They are aggressive, nasty animals that will kill for literally no reason.
A very balanced presentation. It's rather sad really as the hippos of course are just hippo-ing with no intent to cause a malaise. They are also possibly an accidental evolutionary analogue to Toxodon and Colombia could indeed be an ecological lifeboat for the species as they decline across Africa. Simultaneously, would you want to live next to a multi-tonne herbivore with anger management problems?
In Africa, they do! Though, probably best not to turn all the Colombian hippos into burgers as tempting as it might be... 😅Should be a more ethical way.
If the hippo problem in Colombia isn’t fixed soon then the hippo could become one of the most devastating invasive species we’ve ever seen. They have the capability to completely destroy the majority of South Americas ecosystem if they keep growing and spread out of Colombia
Rather than spending millions on castration and relocation, why not sell a limited number of hunting licenses for a significant sum of money to keep the population size in check and generate revenue for the local government?
I’ve always loved the hippos since I was a kid. Wether it was taking a trip to the zoo or watching documentaries on them. They are pretty creatures to be reckoned with
Columbia might want to check in with Australia. The Great Emu War did not end well for us, but they mercifully took pity on the featherless refugees. The Hippos may not be as forgiving. As they have laid claim to the land and are highly territorial of their sovereign rights.
We should cultivate species where they are invasive then transplant and acclimate them to where they are endangered. A lot of plants and animals could thrive in a non native habitats, geography keeps them isolated. My orchids are native to Thailand, Borneo, Mexico, and Australia they survive and thrive outside in Florida. If it’s endangered it’s better to have it alive as a foreigner, than not at all. The ghost orchid is endangered but could probably thrive in the Amazon, Thailand, or Hawaii.
I can see your point, but wouldn't that risk the health of other native creatures. I mean, yeah, the plants might do good, but now 40 species of plants are dying out.. And 1 < 40
Wait, this entire population is descended from ONE male and only three females??? There probably haven't been enough generations to be affected by inbreeding yet but this population of hippos already has a grim fate. Even if the idea of destroying this population is unpalatable, it doesn't seem very ethical to just let them be free to mate with their siblings either.
Columbia might want to check in with Australia. The Great Emu War did not end well for us, but they mercifully took pity on the featherless refugees. The Hippos may not be as forgiving. As they have laid claim to the land and are highly territorial of their sovereign rights.
she never said they were, she said hippos can replace extinct herbivores, as in they can fulfill the role of eating plants while still being omnivorous
Hippos are herbivores,here in Africa,they graze at night and get back in their pools before dawn. They attack humans and kill them but never feed on flesh. They are simply are afraid of humans passing near rivers,they see it as an obstruction from getting back to the river. They are very territorial too.
At first I thought she was going to say that someone got strung out on coke and decided to buy hippos. Like a far more dangerous version of someone getting stoned on marijuana and eating all your food.
I feel like this would make a fun premise for a Cocaine Bear sequel in the form of a bunch of coked out Hippos going after a group of drug dealers and partying "teenagers".😂
But don’t you think these African hippopotamuses should be reintroduced back into their native homeland in Africa in some places and regions where African hippopotamuses are extinct from in some places or regions across the whole continent of Africa?!
@@b43xoit but how hard would it be to capture and relocate African hippopotamuses back to their native homeland in Africa without getting attacked by these very dangerous herbivores?!
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
Thanks for watching! Be sure to check out Tasha's video on the tech that's helping the fight against wildfires over on MobileSyrup: ruclips.net/video/cofK5zT_OrE/видео.htmlsi=vWU4gMkBADoAADAS. They upload new educational videos about the world of tech every other week, don't forget to subscribe!
Please make a video about aardvarks.
Coppos
Why the desk?
Please make a video on Asian elephants.
@@mikeghost7788This is more of a news type story, so we decided to change up the format!
As a Colombian myself this story is hard, obviously the hippos are living things, but they don't belong in our ecosystem and are extremely dangerous.
Total agree
On the other side, hippos are protecting streams from overfishing by humans and naturally fertilizing wetlands.
@@RedTyrant hippos are primarily herbivores they aren't "over fishing" lol they don't eat fish
@@AndyFromBeavertondid you even watch the video?
@@AndyFromBeavertonthey end up killing all the fish because they poop too much. So your point is nonsense
Largely unknown fact is that there was almost an invasive hippo problem here in the US too. In 1910, Robert Broussard, Congressman from Louisiana proposed releasing hippos into the bayous of Louisiana to deal with a water hyacinth problem and a meat supply crisis which were both going on at the time. It didn't pass but did get a lot of support. Think that was one of the worst ideas Congress has ever come up with.
Is that real!! What!!
Well, considering that *it didn't pass,* I wouldn't say it was "one of the worst ideas Congress has ever come up with."
@@011keepers I wish I was creative enough to make up something that absurd
What was he thinking?! That's worse than the idiot drug lord from South America. Zoos which has proper containment, and circuses are enough as they are with hippos, but trying to release them into the wild, or what the idiot did is way worse.
There's an alternate history novella series about queer hippo rangers called American Hippo. It's a grand time
"Colombia Has Declared War On Cocaine Hippos", now there's a sentence I never thought I would hear in my life but here we are
But they don't crap to war on drug cartels!
Columbia might want to check in with Australia. The Great Emu War did not end well for us, but they mercifully took pity on the featherless refugees.
The Hippos may not be as forgiving. As they have laid claim to the land and are highly territorial of their sovereign rights.
Austalians : “yeah yeah definitely 🤨 who is in the right mind will want to wage war on mammals or BIRDS *cough *cough”
Let live let um live ❤❤❤❤❤❤⭐
{Welcome to the Jungle opening riff}
As a zoologist, it's about damn time. I hate how people care more about these hippos than the native ecosystem they're destroying.
They are not destroying the ecosystem. Do elephants destroy the ecosystem when they eat brushes and tear down trees.
The native ecosystem has already been hugely modified by human actions over that last 10 thousand years though, including all the all the megafaunal extinctions. Genuinely interested in your point of view, because as a lay person, it seems like there are times when restoring megafauna to environments where they existed for millions of years prior to humans, might create healthier ecosystems, rather than the reverse? Interested in what you think about bison in the UK, or Pleistocene Park in Siberia.
The other issue is we can't continue letting humans modify ecosystems because it is resulting in habit loss, various kinds of pollution, and global warming.
HIPPO
LIVES
MATTER
@@merryn9000 I'm currently studying in ecology. Yes, reintroducing megafauna could have positive impacts in theory, but in practice unfortunately this is not the case. One of the major flaws in the reintroduction of extinct species is that the ecostystem changes constantly. For recently extinct species this isn't an issue, but here we're talking thousands of years. The ecosystem has adapted to the change, and very few remenents of megafauna (like cultivated avocados) still remain. This is ignoring that hippos aren't the original inhabitants, so their ecological impact is not the same either. It would be like replacing a giraffe with a cow and saying they have the same role in the habitat, where cows graze on grass while giraffes browse tall trees.
It’s insane how one man caused all of these issues
Aye, he was a very irresponsible... erm... super rich murderous drug lord.
we all make mistakes, you could even blame the daughter
At least, in his time, cocaine was about ten times cheaper.
Thomas Austin is the reason why Australia has a rabbit problem now. Sometimes literally just one person can make a huge difference.
Speaking of one person creating a problem, there this guy in the USA called Donald Swamp....
Colombians care more about showy invasive exotic species than our own native species. That's the plain truth. We have one of the biggest biodiversity but we do not protect this richness as fervently as we do with these invasive species.
@@alexcontreras6103 Even if, and that's a big fat massive *if* hippos could possibly fill the roles of dead megafauna species, the merry hell they're causing now and would continue to cause in the future would certainly destroy whatever ecosystem they rehabilitate. You're not putting bison back into the great plains of North America here.
@alexcontreras6103 those megafauna grew with and evolved in the environment, not transplanted from halfway across the earth to a foreign environment. Its those lack of adaptations to the local environment and the environments lack of adaptations to it that make these invasive species dangerous.
@@Platoctopus I completely understand that. But the megafauna at one point had to "adapt" and "evolve". Just like all new world monkey's that evolved from one group that floated from Africa on a raft, or cats coming from Asia to America or even T-Rex ancestors that crossed from Asia to America etc etc. This is the story of life, the forgien environment is the crucial building material that propels evolution and change. I understand that change from one species can cause a ripple to the environment, but that's a factor that becomes crucial in environmental resilience. I know many will think I'm crazy from what I am saying but I truly believe in the concept of planting seeds for the future, will not be in my lifetime but lets say we put cheetahs or rhinos in the plains of United states they would start adapting at a rapid rate. Polar bears and Grizzlies separated only 200,000 to 130,000 years ago yet they are extremely different unlike Northern and Southern white rhinos who separated a million years ago yet they are still subspecies why because little did the environment change or land separated them.
@@alexcontreras6103you do realize you're dumb right
@@alexcontreras6103if there was a role for them to fill, there would have been a species that evolved to fill that role
As a South African 🇿🇦 I was so puzzled when I first heard that Colombians 🇨🇴 fell in love with hippos when they're so terrifying to us. They're literally one of the most aggressive and unpredictable wild beasts in the world.
Bruh. People here are crazy. They can and will sell you a sinkhole. If there're hippos we sure are going to take advantage of it lol.
Because the people wanting hippos probably live absolutely no where near the area. It's always the unaffected who want to keep a problem.
They're likely seen as an exotic animal still new to Colombia.
You know man we just built different
You're not lying. Them things are super dangerous. They need to be brought back home to their original continent. I wouldn't go near them.
Never thought that Moto Moto is a drug lord
Starting from such a small population, are they genetically healthy?
No
Weirdly enough, yeah
Inbreeding takes more than a few generations to take any noticeable effects. And there’s a lot of factors to consider, one of which is certain species not being as sensitive to inbreeding as others; hippos are just built different it seems.
The danger point for a genetic bottleneck is different for different species. Some animals are fine with very few individuals but others require many thousands. The hippos don't need particularly many but what's helping them is the abundant resources of the river system which let them spread out more. With four random individuals they'll probably have some quirks and disorder predispositions but they're probably fine overall. Inbreeding takes a few generations to be a problem.
Lol, a simple question immediately followed by three completely different answers. The short version is... It depends. How related were the three females to each other and the male? If not at all, that's good news for genetic diversity. Also, new stimulus from a new environment and habitat that they're not perfectly adapted to, only comfortable in, can spur changes in DNA that help with diversity. And with their relatively slow reproductive rate (five years to maturity, offspring about every year and a half) it could be a very long time before any negative effects come to light. So the answer for now seems to be "healthy enough," but the diversity of the starting four will determine if that changes in five years, fifty, or never.
Repeat after me "hippos are not native to Colombia" and watch the video.
I love wildlife and I am 100% with their protection and care, but I am also realistic when they are part of the problem. Escobar's hippos are a species introduced to the Magdalena River in Colombia, after the drug trafficker's private zoo was dismantled.
No one freed them, they simply left them there out of negligence and thought they would die of hunger. The Colombian river region is very different from where these animals originate, it does not have a prolonged dry season and there are no animals beyond man that can prey on a hippopotamus in Colombia.
They are extremely territorial animals and can kill anyone they believe is a threat, victims of this have been livestock, local people and river manatees. Their feces alter the chemistry of the river water, altering important processes that are needed to maintain the homeostasis of the ecosystem. In addition, they are high competitors for natural resources with native species, displacing them from their natural distribution.
Many will say the argument of "man does more harm" to justify and protect hippos, but they are simply justifying inaction and ecological loss to have moral superiority and feel like protectors of the animals behind a keyboard.
Att: a Colombian veterinary doctor.
you're a based individual my friend. People who 'love' animals don't even know the first thing about ecology
Spot on my southern friend. In the states we are dealing with feral hogs and pythons! People get mad when Florida has its annual python hunts (which try to get the females by following males during the breeding season) and the fact that it's law in Florida to destroy all invasive species upon finding them. I love animals.... when they are where they belong.
@@G.I_Jane I always wonder if North American animals are ever invasive in other areas. It never seems to be stories about that.
Repeat after me: hippos are food, not friends.
Our negligence has consequences. If you really care about the way a Hippo can affect the ecosystems, stop Humans. We're the biggest invasive species and problem the world has. Leave the hippos alone.
It surprised me that when the animals were taken away from Pablo Escobar's zoo they just let these huge dangers animals that kills hundreds of people on the loose in the waters of Colombia
They mistakenly thought the hippos would stay in that one pond on Pablo’s estate.
@@pbp6741 someone or anyone should have point out the fact hippo can travel a lot on land in fact at night a hippo can travel more than 20 miles on land
@@kevinquinonez838 I agree. Most people don’t realise that when the sun goes down hippos come up out of the water to graze. Imagine the Colombians shock the morning after that one hippo exclaimed, “Hey fam, there’s some lush grass over this hill down by that river!”
@@pbp6741i disagree. Hippos talk in cockney slang. "Fancy sum grass, guv'nor?"
Columbia might want to check in with Australia. The Great Emu War did not end well for us, but they mercifully took pity on the featherless refugees.
The Hippos may not be as forgiving. As they have laid claim to the land and are highly territorial of their sovereign rights.
"hippos are from subsaharan Africa, so what are they doing in South America? The answer its strangely enough... cocaine"
Wait what? Are hippos doing cocaine? 😂😂
No, some idiot drug lord brought them over, without proper containment, as novelty to show off. Now they are running free.
@@user-ue9dk3ij1l if Hollywood gave us Cocaine Bear they better give us Cocaine Hippo too😂
The prequel to cocaine bear..lol
Thank goodness not, they're already aggressive enough!
they certainly have the nostrils for it.
Alright, let's clear it up, once and for all. They're hippos that were purchased and imported to Colombia with cocaine money. They're not hippos hopped up on cocaine all the time!
Yeah that's what I was waiting to hear about. Like were they showing down on coco plants and ruining the cocaine industry?
I don’t think anyone was confused.
How can you tell that they're not hopped up on cocaine?
You mean No Cocaine Bear sequel ?
How dare you cocaine hippo for life
Forget about bears can you imagine a hippo actually having enough cocaine and its system to affect its behavior?
When angry they naturally seem like they've taken a hit off the pipe
That's what i tought when i read the tittle, Hippo's are already incredibly dangereous, i don't want to imagine what an angry Hippo could do when high on cocaine.
Columbia might want to check in with Australia. The Great Emu War did not end well for us, but they mercifully took pity on the featherless refugees.
The Hippos may not be as forgiving. As they have laid claim to the land and are highly territorial of their sovereign rights.
I read the word "cocaine hippo" and assumed that Pablo's original herd of hippos had found a cocaine stash and gone on a rampage.
Based on videos I've seen of hippos, I thought "no wonder they've declared war on them"
Honestly, I doubt drugs are going to make a difference for a wild animal. They already have ample adrenaline whenever they're in a fight or flight scenario. It's not like they've been domesticated like people have.
@@BLOODKINGbro how lonely are u to post the same message multiple times? are u scared someone might not see your reply? Its not that clever bud.
This might have been one of my favourite videos. So well structured and full of information, this is what I love to see. I love that this channel never fails in quality well done!
Lots of incorrect info.
@@mrfingers4737 Yes, for example I highly doubt castrating 40 Hippos a year and moving 85 others will cost 'hundreds of millions of dollars'
No hippos snorted cocaine during the filming of this video.
...at the after party, however 😶
How much coke would a hippo even need?
Asking for a friend...
They prefer freebasing.
@@skaldlouiscyphre2453 I'm just trying to imagine a hippo high on coke.
How does a hippo snort a line of cocaine?
The theoretical positive of "successful re-wilding" is stretching logic into copium... You can't introduce an apex species into an environment that hasn't had it's like for over 3000 years and not expect things to start collapsing.
3000 years is an evolutionary blink of an eye. In that timescale, you absolutely can introduce new megafauna to fulfill previous roles.
@@matiasluukkanen7718 No, it really isn't. You're thinking of geological timescales. Evolutionary timescales are at most hundreds of years.
There's just so much cope around these stupid hippos. At the alarming rate that they can reproduce and their sheer size, we'll see a reckoning as their proliferate. Just look at feral hogs.
Yeah, especially of the sort that wasn't actually there. The previous megafauna wasn't all /that/ much like hippos and they'd been extinct since the last ice age, possibly because that was just it... that perhaps South America had already moved on from that time but no one thought of that is crazy to me. The ecosystem isn't what it was. And it isn't going to be. They probably wouldn't be able to reintroduce the extinct species there if they managed to somehow GM them into being... why would they think bringing in hippos would work the same or better?
Also, the hippos themselves were never there. This isn't rewilding. At best you're substituting an extinct local species with unrelated new ones from half way across the world and hoping it doesn't screw the world over.
@@Gustav_KurigaMeanwhile, back in Reality, it has taken man about seven million years to evolve from primate to Homo Sapiens.
Future alien paleontologists would have a super hard time understanding Holocene plate tectonics because suddenly animals start jumping all over the globe, there are hippos in South America and camels in Australia. Imagine the whacky theories that would arise to explain this.
They'd see humans and remnants of technology and microplastic everywhere and pretty quickly figure out what happened.
Obviously the humans covered the entire globe in a layer of plastic that allowed the animals to cross over.
Whatever theory they come up with, it will be some variant of "these humans were crazy!"
If only you could send them back to Africa to re-integrate into the natural hippo population, it would be perfect for them, but that might be expensive too if you can manage to catch them, and very difficult to teach the hippos, what’s like to live in Africa as a hippo
They are big animals eating mostly plants in water: I don't think that they would have many problems re-adapting to Africa.
That wouldn't be a good idea as they woukd take back with them all the foreign pathogens they collect in South America like different species of parasites and diseases. African animals are not adapted to deal with these new invaders and so you will also similarly damage the ecosystem in Africa just as the hippos are doing in South America.
@@Ektor-yj4puHippos primarily graze on grass. Water plants are a tiny portion of the diet, if at all.
Wouldn't there also be an issue of isolated genes and inbreeding?
I think relocating the colombian hippos could damage the gene pool of the african hippos if they mix with the colombian ones...
@@Rol-E-Roll-da_real_1It would have the opposite effect.
You'd think humanity would have learned not to declare war on animals after the Great Emu War...
Never forget 😥✊
You do know the Australia actually won that in the long term correct they simply switched from the absolutely insane tactic of having the military shoot at them with machine guns to the far more reasonable tactic of simply posting bounties for emus and letting the free market do the rest
That was more of an example of what happens when you try to get something like solving a pest problem without spending the necessary money.
I don't see the similarity, Emus are fast and their essential organs are well hidden and hard to aim at. Plus they split up the moment they get ambushed.
Hippos are no where near as fast, and are a large targets. Even if they don't want to kill them, it's not hard to get them with tranquilizers. They don't reproduce as fast either.
Such a farce 😂 Resistance is futile!🦛
I’m glad they mentioned the pros and cons of the hippos! I read an article a few years ago that mostly discussed the positive benefits of the hippos and ever since then I’ve thought of them as a mostly good thing. Good to have additional information and perspective
There's a hippo that comes out of the water in our backyard here in Congo. It's been there my whole life and it has never caused any harm to anyone. I've touched it a few times but we're still cautious around it. Other hippos are about 30 miles down the river. I don't know why this one hangs out around here for almost 40 years.
I feel bad for the Colombian hippos
Sounds like you live in paradise 😊
@@ravidadz2354 Bambi visits him also
Isn't there like an ongoing thing with cocaine animal horror films.
Cocane hippo sounds like it writes itself, and sounds terrifying
cocaine bear is now a movie.
i agree cocaine hippo sounds much more scarier than the bear one......
@rexflamevermillion5527 I hope it's a success because it would show how dangerous and deadly hippos really are.
So 30 million dollars per castrated/captured hippos? wow, I'd learn basic surgery/hunting and get it done myself in 10 years and have half a billion dollars in my pocket.
Considering hippos are one of the most dangerous animals in the world.... good luck.
Yeah but guess what? We're quite a bit more dangerous. I'll join the hippo castrating team.@@AnEnormousNerd
The Escobar legacy 😢😢😢 greetings from Bogota Colombia ❤❤❤
Please rename it Ciudad Hippo.
We have a problem in Australia with animals that have been introduced from overseas because someone thought they were a good idea. Think rabbits, foxes, horses, camels, cane toads, dogs, cats, pigs, European carp and more. Once they get into the general area they each cause major problems in the environment and are almost impossible to get back under control. Nature set up a balanced environment over the millions of years, and man can bugger it up in only a lifetime. I love wild animals, but each in their own balanced environment.
I agree, as an austrailan I find it heart breaking our delicate ecosystem is being damaged this way, tbh i would get the hippos under control before it get's too out of hand, it's only 160 animals and could set up a hippo sanctuary which is manageable, unlike dealing our millions of feral cats around the country.
So, I can see a " sequel" to Cocaine Bear coming
if it is not called "international snow mauling day" imma be extremely dissapointed.
There is already a kind of sequel in the works, meth gator (I'm not kidding) so cocaine hippo would make a trilogy
@@1SciFiGeek508 NICE! Heroine Hippo!
It would be the prequel..lol
@@prairierider7569*dramatic narrator* Before the bear… before the alligator… there were… the HIPPOS.
The only animal I ever seen attack a hippo besides another hippo was lionesses.And thats only under certain circumstances
Columbia might want to check in with Australia. The Great Emu War did not end well for us, but they mercifully took pity on the featherless refugees.
The Hippos may not be as forgiving. As they have laid claim to the land and are highly territorial of their sovereign rights.
Elephants and rhinos
And it doesn't tend to end well for the lion
You also have Gustave...but that's just adding another, worse problem there
some animals attack hippos during the dry season, when they are more vulnerable, anywho, the only animal that i know that will attack and hippo , in water ,will be a crocodile, and i think they mostly try to go for calves
the most scary thing is that if they live to be 50, the first 4 may still be alive
They are alive
why is it scary to think an animal is still alive past fifty? Do your grandparents scare u cause they lived past fifty lmao
did you hear how many there are, my grand parents had10 grand children, 15 great grandchildren and only two of those want children there are only 3 = 30 offspring in 70yrs, not a family of 180, that is what is scary and that most wild animals can breed till they die@@MrArrow54
@@MrArrow54 I assume he means how quickly they reproduce versus how long they can live
I forsee another problem with the Columbian hippo; the longer they are isolated, the more they will adapt to life in South America and given sufficient time (and it doesn't take all that long relatively) they could become a genetically destinct species completely separate from African hippos
Why does that matter?
Columbia might want to check in with Australia. The Great Emu War did not end well for us, but they mercifully took pity on the featherless refugees.
The Hippos may not be as forgiving. As they have laid claim to the land and are highly territorial of their sovereign rights.
How is this a problem and not a chance?
This could be a chance to change them into Amazonian hippo 😅
there is no Columbian hippo
🎶 She got a hippopotamus for Christmaaasss🎶
That song immediately came to mind when she said that he bought them for his daughter.
@@Primalxbeastsame
FINNALY! I thought they were never gonna do it.
Hippos would couse the extinction of manatees, and others
Isnt making a Attraction out of an invasive, dangereous species more of the opposite of "eco tourism"?
Seriously, defending a dangerous and system altering invasive species is so beyond real wildlife protection, its mind boggling
Cocaine Hippopotami: We now finally know what those large nostrils were for all along.
Been oddly waiting for this channel to do a video on this subject. ✊🏾💯 🦛
they should reintroduce most of them to areas in africa where hippos are struggling in order to reinforce genetic diversity, donate a few to zoos around colombia and the world and build a closed hippo reserve with a controled population to keep the tourism.
These hippos are the descendants of only 3 hippos
How exactly?? They are invasive and dangerous.
How would they even move them all???
@@lagiax9668 the same ways zoos move elephants. They were brought there so there's definitely a way to move a hippo. It would be expensive but that's on them. If they had simply done it when there was only 16 it would have been much cheaper. Hard to balk at the expense when their own incompetence led to the issue.
@@lagiax9668the same way they arrived in South America…..by plane
"The answer, strangely enough, is cocaine." Oh, well, that actually explains a lot.
Great documentary ,i like your style of reporting ,you just won another subscriber thanks to your talent❤
7:39 I didn't even realize there were birds in the shot until the hippo LITERALLY STARTED SPRAYING ITS SHIT ALL OVER THEM 😭😭😭
Imagine millions of years from now a huge jaguar evolved to hunt in packs to eat the hippos
When people act with feelings rather than logic this is the result. 100 of millions spent to save a few hundred hippos? Insanity
Before this video, I had no idea Escobar got the hippos _for his daughter_ . To me, one of the most dangerous men in the world wanting to own a bunch of one of the most dangerous animals in the world seemed to track. I could follow that logic. Getting them for his daughter, though? Not exactly Father of the Year material there...
Six year old me would beg to differ. That'd definitely be father of the year material.
🎵 All I want is a hippopotamus for Christmas 🎵
He got the hippos to prevent the army travelling up the river to his coke refineries, not for his daughter.
@@PaulWalliswriter Ok, yeah, that makes way more sense than what they claimed in the video. Like I say, that tracks.
There was a story the daughter wanted a unicorn for her birthday party. He hah a horn and wings stapled on a horse that then died of an infection. Inhuman he was.
Hippos are very dangerous . In ancient times , They were the first reason of death for egyptian farmers . Basically, a ton walking tank with a bad attitude and a mouth that cut in half a crocodile or a lion .
This story I ran into a few years ago. Pablo Escobar brought these into Colombia for a Zoo for his children. How he got these dangerous animals there is a mystery to me. Because they are damn dangerous. But it is an invasive species and it is out competing against all native animals in Colombia.
they were young Einstein
Do you think the richest, most corrupt person in Colombia had an issue with import papers? BTW, they were flown in as youngsters.
"Until a fisherman crosses the wrong hippo."
You say this like humans are up to their old tricks. But in this case the hippo is to blame. They are aggressive, nasty animals that will kill for literally no reason.
omg im so happy to see a botero piece in there hes one of my favorite artists
Hippos unlocked enhancing intoxication, we are screwed.
Fuckin wild seeing this at the top of my notifications
Leaving out that the Colombian Hippos were in talks with the Emus. Clearly this alliance was a preparation for war.
Is hippo meat not edible?
They're edibles
In Sub-Saharan Africa, hippo eats you.
This channel never disappoints :) Great video and most interesting indeed.
Thank you very much! Glad you liked it!
Let's hope it doesn't end like the War on Emus.
emus was merciful.....this is putting it on hard mode lols
A very balanced presentation. It's rather sad really as the hippos of course are just hippo-ing with no intent to cause a malaise. They are also possibly an accidental evolutionary analogue to Toxodon and Colombia could indeed be an ecological lifeboat for the species as they decline across Africa. Simultaneously, would you want to live next to a multi-tonne herbivore with anger management problems?
I wonder if hippos make good eating.
In Africa, they do! Though, probably best not to turn all the Colombian hippos into burgers as tempting as it might be... 😅Should be a more ethical way.
Author Peter Capstick claimed that hippo stroganoff made by his camp chef rivaled 5 star fare.
The hippo was considered as a domesticated animal like cows in the USA 150 years ago.
They realized the animal is nearly the most dangerous animal.
They should make a sequel to "Cocaine Bear" called "Cocaine Hippo"
I like this format, Dan. The desk, red background and all. And the world's largest microphone is nowhere in sight. ;-)
I can't believe your amazing host didn't travel to Colombia to go on a hippo tour
its not safe traveling in CO, unless you have powerful allies and armed protection...
@@viral_suppressor4154 maybe you should stop watching fox news and travel more, eh pendejo??
Our trusty producer Andres, who is Colombian, went down to film the hippos!
LOL, you must not get out much
@@viral_suppressor4154 Wtf
Funny how geotextile weed barrier with little wooden stakes is used for a fence for hippos.
If the hippo problem in Colombia isn’t fixed soon then the hippo could become one of the most devastating invasive species we’ve ever seen. They have the capability to completely destroy the majority of South Americas ecosystem if they keep growing and spread out of Colombia
Not likely to spread much. The Magdalena River is a long ways from other large bodies of freshwater.
There is no problem with hippos. They are huge. They breed slowly. They cannot hide well.
Major problem. It will become a HUGE problem pretty soon.
NEVER noticed that hippos use their wieners like a bidet. Thanks Animalogic
With 3 females and 1 male being the original gene stock, isn't there a danger of genetic bottlenecking? Is that a viable gene pool ?
Rather than spending millions on castration and relocation, why not sell a limited number of hunting licenses for a significant sum of money to keep the population size in check and generate revenue for the local government?
I’ve always loved the hippos since I was a kid. Wether it was taking a trip to the zoo or watching documentaries on them. They are pretty creatures to be reckoned with
They scary in the wild🇿🇦😮
@@KonradvonHotzendorf so are lions and bears but their still amazing creatures.
«Colombia declares war on hippos because of cocaine» I can’t stop f***ing laughing
They will literally have a boss fight.😂😂😂
Columbia might want to check in with Australia. The Great Emu War did not end well for us, but they mercifully took pity on the featherless refugees.
The Hippos may not be as forgiving. As they have laid claim to the land and are highly territorial of their sovereign rights.
Colombian Hippo: "Humans declared war on me!"
Emus: "First time?"
Sounds like a solid way to protect the rainforest from logging imo
The rewilding case can be the same for Camels and Water buffaloes in Australia..
I guess a movie called "Cocaine Hippo" doesn't roll off the tongue as well as "Cocaine Bear"!
"Marijuana Hippo" might better explain the whole, "Hungry, hungry hippo" thing.
"Nothing could be worse than cocaine bears."
-Me the utter buffoon, unaware that there is far, far worse.
yep.....something much scarier than cocaine bear spawned......
Great opening 👍🏻
How do they taste grilled?
@AllanPeda haven't had hippo meat, but I like the way you think 🥩🍽
"Colombian hippo" sounds like the code name for CIA mission to prop up a dictator to secure American coffee access
1 male 3 feemales, which means after 2 generations all the hippos are inbred, the hippos will eventually die out due to inbreeding health problems .
We should cultivate species where they are invasive then transplant and acclimate them to where they are endangered.
A lot of plants and animals could thrive in a non native habitats, geography keeps them isolated.
My orchids are native to Thailand, Borneo, Mexico, and Australia they survive and thrive outside in Florida.
If it’s endangered it’s better to have it alive as a foreigner, than not at all.
The ghost orchid is endangered but could probably thrive in the Amazon, Thailand, or Hawaii.
I can see your point, but wouldn't that risk the health of other native creatures. I mean, yeah, the plants might do good, but now 40 species of plants are dying out..
And 1 < 40
Yeah, but not if it endangers the native species.
Suggested species for future episodes: Socorro Dove, Eurasian Collared Dove, Passenger Pigeon.
Carolina Parakeet
The sequel to cocaine bear 🤣👌 btw loove the hair style!
as if hippos werent psycho enough
Forget “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas;” all Columbia wants is for the Hippos to go away.
hippo burgers?!
that is a thought.
Capstick wrote of a chef he hired for his hunting camp in Africa that made hippo stroganoff that rivaled the dish from a 5 star restaurant.
Wait, this entire population is descended from ONE male and only three females??? There probably haven't been enough generations to be affected by inbreeding yet but this population of hippos already has a grim fate. Even if the idea of destroying this population is unpalatable, it doesn't seem very ethical to just let them be free to mate with their siblings either.
that's not a title I expected to read today 😂
I heard "They hurt kids every 15 months" 🤣 Pennywise Hippos
I confess: I'm a little disappointed that the video is not about hippos literally doing cocaine. 😅
I mean. Escobar probably fed them cocaine XD
A hippo would need Scarface sized pile of coke just to get back to normal every morning.
There is no free cocaine at the end of the video, is there? Asking for a friend.
It's going to be the Emu war all over again.
Lol
I hope so, our victims better not go down without a fight.
Columbia might want to check in with Australia. The Great Emu War did not end well for us, but they mercifully took pity on the featherless refugees.
The Hippos may not be as forgiving. As they have laid claim to the land and are highly territorial of their sovereign rights.
@@BLOODKINGbro It's a meme and they just paid farmers to kill them afterwards anyways to much better efficiency. Learn your own history.
Highly unlikely.
That 1 male Hippo in the beginning was like alright yea baby yea.
Hippos aren’t herbivores, they’re omnivores
They are herbivores but will happily kill animals but not eat them.
she never said they were, she said hippos can replace extinct herbivores, as in they can fulfill the role of eating plants while still being omnivorous
Hippos are herbivores,here in Africa,they graze at night and get back in their pools before dawn. They attack humans and kill them but never feed on flesh. They are simply are afraid of humans passing near rivers,they see it as an obstruction from getting back to the river. They are very territorial too.
@@elizabethmwangi5529 google it, they have been observed actively eating meat and hunting mammals for consumption
At first I thought she was going to say that someone got strung out on coke and decided to buy hippos. Like a far more dangerous version of someone getting stoned on marijuana and eating all your food.
Add hippo to bandeja paisa 🍛 problem solved.
Yeah it's called playing with fire, you'll learn eventually it's just a matter of when and how much damage it'll cause first
This should become part of the history curriculum
...Colombian history, or...?
@@WeeWeeJumbo This should be taught in all countries
I feel like this would make a fun premise for a Cocaine Bear sequel in the form of a bunch of coked out Hippos going after a group of drug dealers and partying "teenagers".😂
its much more brutal and more graphic in a movie than the bear movie if you know hippos violent tendencies....
I want a hippopotamus for Christmas! Only a hippopotamus will do!
Their dangerous wild animals
@@Thunderblock7889 it's a song
I'm from a small tiny country called the Gambia and we have hippos living there since the 14th century and they're all only aggressive when threatened
But don’t you think these African hippopotamuses should be reintroduced back into their native homeland in Africa in some places and regions where African hippopotamuses are extinct from in some places or regions across the whole continent of Africa?!
Hard to move them around, no doubt.
@@b43xoit but how hard would it be to capture and relocate African hippopotamuses back to their native homeland in Africa without getting attacked by these very dangerous herbivores?!
it is hard to do that. the hippos are also full of Colombian germs and could spread them to native population if moved.
The colombian government wouldnt be paying for that, thats for sure
@@RoseNZieg but can’t they be quarantined in Africa?!