✅   The cocaine kingpin's wildest legacy: what can be done with Pablo Escobar's marauding hippos?

Science

The Colombian drug lord’s exotic menagerie fell apart after his death, and now wild hippos are breeding out of controlIn the steamy heat of the afternoon, Yamit Diaz Romero steered our motorised longboat around overhanging bamboo branches and islets in the Claro Cocorná Sur River in Colombia. Red howler monkeys swung from the cables of a footbridge and screeched in the jungle. Herons, snowy egrets, brown pelicans and parakeets darted across the coffee-coloured water and soared over our heads. Theriver is known as a destination for whitewater rafting. But these days it’s also become the scene of a more unsettling natural phenomenon.Joining me on the vessel was Alejandro Mira, a veterinarian from Medellín, and Joshua Wilson, an ...

The Guardian     Aug 27, 2024