13 April 2023 , 09:55
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A hippopotamus from the same family as those owned by drug lord Pablo Escobar has died after being struck by a large car in Colombia.
The people inside the vehicle were unharmed in the collision which took place on a highway from Bogota to Medellin in the northwest, close to where Escobar's estate had been.
The hippo died immediately afterwards and was removed to be analysed, environmental authorities said.
A group of hippos were bought in the 1980s to Escobar’s private zoo, Hacienda Nápoles, which became a tourist attraction after his death in 1993.
The beasts escaped following Escobar’s death and spread from the estate into nearby rivers.
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The animal, weighing more than a tonne, was found lying on the road near a hacienda that belonged to the deceased drug lord (Puerto Triunfo's Fire Brigade/AF)There are now more than 100, as they have no natural predators in Colombia.
Officials say their population could rise to 400 in eight years as most of them live freely in rivers and reproduce without control.
Colombia has proposed transferring at least 70 of the animals to India and Mexico to control their population, as they have been declared an invasive species that could upset the ecosystem and the crash shows the additional danger they represent.
Luz Dámaris Luján, a community leader in Estacion Pita, a municipality 10km away from the scene of the crash, said to the Guardian: "Everyone around here is terrified because we are flooded with these hippopotamuses. Now we’re at the point where we can’t even go out at night any more.
"The government needs to hurry up and do something because we are getting tired of this.”
Ecologists say they must be culled before they cause more irreversible damage to the delicate ecosystem of the Magdalena River or cause their first human fatality.
"This is one of the dangers that the presence of this species represents. Many of them cross the highway where many vehicles pass, it is also a danger to people," said David Echeverri López, a biologist at Cornare, the local environmental authority.
Aníbal Gaviria Correa, the governor of Antioquia state, who is heading the plan to export Escobar’s hippos, tweeted: "This painful accident reaffirms the importance of urgently translocating the hippos from Doradal to India and Mexico … Please help us with permits for the transfer of these majestic animals."
The car’s driver was reportedly unharmed, however, images tweeted by Mr Correa show the front end of the vehicle almost entirely destroyed and debris from the crash and blood from the hippo’s carcass spread across the road.