Hippos once owned by Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar are on the run – and considered dangerous

A herd of hippopotamuses once owned by the late Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar is on the run.

If Colombian authorities don’t figure out a way to capture, or at least control, the fugitives soon, they may meet the same end as their former owner.

Hippos have been living at Escobar’s former ranch, Hacienda Napoles, about 200 miles northwest of Bogota, since the early 1980s.

The leader of the Medellin Cartel used his ill-gotten wealth to stock a private zoo with exotic animals, including giraffes, zebras, elephants and four hippos — three female and one male.

After Escobar was shot dead in 1993, the Colombian government confiscated the eight-square-mile ranch and sent the animals to zoos around the country — except the hippos.

No one wanted the hefty herbivores because they were considered too expensive to feed and difficult to control.

So, they stayed in the lake at the ranch and multiplied.

But the flimsy fence surrounding the enclosure could not contain the curious animals, which began exploring the ranch and then further afield.

In 2005, people in the countryside around Hacienda Napoles began to report sightings of an unusual beast.

"They found a creature in a river that they had never seen before, with small ears and a really big mouth," Carlos Valderrama from the charity Webconserva told the BBC.

Like this one:

It was a hippo. But it wasn’t just one. At least 12 hippos are believed to have escaped Hacienda Napoles and that number could rise if the dozens of hippos estimated to be still roaming the ranch decide they want a change of scenery.

Hippos, which are endemic to Sub-Saharan Africa, thrive in Colombia: the weather is warm, they have easy access to water and the region never has droughts.

For those reasons they are more sexually active than their African cousins.

Authorities are concerned that the growing hippo population poses a potential danger to humans and livestock.

Hippos, which can weigh up to four tonnes, are territorial and “are not good natured,” according to David Echeverri, head of fauna at government wildlife group CORNARE.

But what can authorities do? Colombian zoos don’t want them and they can’t go back to Africa for fear of transmitting diseases there. According to Valderrama, the most “viable” solution is to shoot them.

"Nobody likes doing that, because we are precisely in the conservation business," he said.