Pablo Escobar’s Fugitive Hippo Killed in Colombia

It’s the sort of headline that you’d expect to see in one of those trashy black-and-white tabloid magazines claiming to have found the secret island home of Elvis, Tupac and Marilyn Monroe – but believe it or not, it’s true.

Famed cocaine baron Pablo Escobar had an exotic collection of animals on his ranch in Colombia, and three hippos escaped almost three years ago. One was just shot and killed.

From The Telegraph:

Authorities ordered that the hippos, two adults and a calf, be hunted down and killed amid concerns they were damaging crops and endangering humans, the Guardian reports.

“It was only a question of time before those animals hurt someone,” the environment minister, Carlos Costa, said. “After more than two years of trying to capture them, the decision [to kill them] was a sound one.”

Escobar was cornered and shot dead in 1993.

Hippos weren’t the only exotic creatures kept on Escobar’s Hacienda Napoles ranch – there were also kangaroos, elephants and rhinos. After Escobar’s death, the state took over the ranch and most of the animals went to zoos. Strangely, about two dozen hippos were left to themselves on the ranch and in 2006, a male and a female escaped and produced a calf.

We’ll spare you the photo of the dead hippo, because it’ll only give you a major case of the sads. Why do narcissistic rich people insist on using exotic animals as a status symbol? It’s sickening.

Link [The Telegraph]
Photo credit: elespectador.com

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