Pablo Escobar's four hippos outlived him, Colombia seized his ranch, and in 2026 the government approved killing their descendants

In 1978 Pablo Escobar and his cousin Gustavo Gaviria assembled the Hacienda Nápoles, about 3,000 hectares between Medellín and Bogotá, with a private zoo of rhinos, elephants, camels, giraffes, zebras and hippos. Escobar valued it at 4,500 million pesos in 1983. In the 1980s four hippos were brought in illegally, three females and one male. After Escobar died in 1993 the ranch was abandoned and looted. A ruling of 16 February 2004, confirmed by the Antioquia High Court on 12 August 2004, extinguished ownership of the land. Part went to the prison service, and the centre went to the municipality of Puerto Triunfo, which opened it as a theme park in 2007 under the slogan "Triunfó el Estado". The hippos stayed and bred along the Magdalena River. In September 2024 the Administrative Court of Cundinamarca gave the Environment Ministry three months to issue rules for "eradication of the species", with about 166 at large. Plans to send animals to Mexico and the Philippines failed. On 13 April 2026 the ministry announced a control plan that allows chemical and physical euthanasia, funded with 7,200 million pesos. It estimated more than 200 hippos, rising to about 500 by 2030 and 1,000 by 2035 without control. Regional environmental authorities are to carry out the measures from the second half of 2026.