Drug lord Pablo Escobar’s hippos have become an invasive species

For almost 20 years he terrorised the South American nation, now one of his lavish purchases is continuing his toxic legacy in the country.

Large wild hippos once owned by infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar have become an invasive species whose waste is wreaking havoc on Colombia’s aquatic ecosystem.

That’s the conclusion of a new study published this week in the journal Ecology, according to the tech publication Cnet.

A mural of Pablo Escobar in his old neighbourhood of Medellín. Picture: Raul Arboleda / AFP

According to researchers from the University of California, San Diego and the Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia, who conducted the study, Escobar’s four hippos have since multiplied to 80 hippos, Cnet reported.

Hippos can grow to 1350 kilograms each.

The researchers determined that the large amounts of waste these creatures were excreting into the lakes they inhabited were changing the water’s chemistry and oxygen levels.

The study found that the hippo waste fertilised harmful algae and bacteria, causing problematic algae blooms similar to red tides, which caused illness in humans and animals.

Escobar’s sprawling drug lair contained an exotic zoo for his children’s enjoyment, according to reports.

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Hippos can grow to weigh more than a tonne. Picture: David Caird

Colombian police killed Escobar in 1993, and afterwards, the government found homes for all the zoo’s exotic inhabitants – except the hippos.

The authors of the study published in Ecology said hippos were difficult to catch and dangerous to confront.

They warned that the hippo population was likely to grow, further changing the aquatic ecosystem, Cnet reported.

Hippos are a vulnerable species found throughout Africa and, now, Colombia. Picture: Jan Kruger/Getty Images

“If you plot out their population growth, we show that it tends to go exponentially skyward,” said UC San Diego’s Jonathan Shurin, a biological sciences professor and the study’s lead author. “In the next couple of decades there could be thousands of them. This study suggests that there is some urgency to deciding what to do about them. The question is: What should that be?”

This article originally appeared on Fox News and was reproduced with permission.

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