And I've probably left a few folks out,
But we can still get together for a little "Hippo-Bump!"
(Has anyone seen Chet?)
.......never mind.
Posted on 06/30/2014 10:15:53 AM PDT by nickcarraway
A herd of hippopotamuses once owned by the late Colombian drug baron Pablo Escobar has been taking over the countryside near his former ranch - and no-one quite knows what to do with them.
It was in 2007, 14 years after Escobar's death, that people in rural Antioquia, 200 miles north-west of Bogota, began phoning the Ministry of Environment to report sightings of a peculiar animal.
"They found a creature in a river that they had never seen before, with small ears and a really big mouth," recalls Carlos Valderrama, from the charity Webconserva.
He went to look, and found himself faced with the task of explaining to startled villagers that this was an animal from Africa. A hippopotamus.
"The fishermen, they were all saying, 'How come there's a hippo here?'" he recalls. "We started asking around and of course they were all coming from Hacienda Napoles. Everything happened because of the whim of a villain."
SNIP
He smuggled in elephants, giraffes and other exotic animals, among them four hippos - three females and one male. And with a typically grand gesture, he allowed the public to wander freely around the zoo. Buses filled with schoolchildren passed under a replica of the propeller plane that carried Escobar's first US-bound shipments of cocaine.
SNIP
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
I believe that is true. People in South America who work or play on the river are going to start dying soon. Those are mean sumbiches.
Valderrama doesn’t recommend eating the meat, in case it is infected with a transmittable disease - one dead hippo was found to be carrying leptospirosis which can cause meningitis - but he does see the complete elimination of male hippos as the most practical solution.
Test the meat before eating, get your meningitis vaccines ...
True, if you eliminate all males, the females will eventually die of old age, issue gone. Or vice-versa.
Craigslist. Just sayin'.
LOL! “Move to Colombia and marry me, citizenship guaranteed!”
“Hippos seeking hippos” - I mean, y’ever been to Walmart on Saturday afternoon?
Often.
Great. Columbia has a bunch of inbred hippos running loose.
Can narcohippos mate with regular old hippos?
That, or they'll move in together, start wearing plaid flannel shirts, carry their oversized wallets on chains connected to their belt loops, and get jobs as democrat cabinet secretaries.
‘Potamus ping!
One assumes ... it can only be a generation or two since they were imported from Africa, too soon for much genetic drift.
This could be a wonderful tourism opportunity for Colombia. And one of those hippos may be the next World Cup goalie.
Colombia already has eco-tourists. As South American countries go, your risk of violent death or ghastly disease isn’t all that bad there, if you’re careful. Tourists might pay a little extra for the opportunity to see hippos in their ideal habitat.
Colombia is a big country, for a place that isn’t China/Russia/Canada/US/Brazil. You can probably arrange a tour with plenty of jungle, even a few hippos, but no FARC. Just get an up-to-date map!
But we can still get together for a little "Hippo-Bump!"
(Has anyone seen Chet?)
.......never mind.
I thought it said hippies.
Never mind.
[though my suggestion would have been the same]
I don’t know what he knows about infected meat, but that guy was one great midfielder. His passing and distributing of the ball was outstanding.
“I want a hippopotamus for Christmas. Only a hippopatomus will do...”
The little girl who sings that song would be glad to take one off their hands. :)
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