Conservationists have declared the only “responsible thing” to do with Pablo Escobar’s rampaging hippos is to totally “eradicate” the beasts.

Conservationists have declared the only ‘responsible thing’ to do with Pablo Escobar’s rampaging hippos is to totally ‘eradicate’ the beasts

Conservationists have declared the only ‘responsible thing’ to do with Pablo Escobar’s rampaging hippos is to totally ‘eradicate’ the beasts

Authorities in Colombia are battling to find a solution of how to stop the feral mammals breeding – with the creatures leaving the country with the largest population of the 1.8 tonne animals outside of Africa.

Experts admit the animals now represent a “major problem” that “exceeds” their ability to deal with them, and say a radical solution is now required.

Colombia’s environment ministry is now finally considering a widespread sterilisation programme and locking the hippos in sanctuaries.

It comes as scientists warn they are a danger to native ecosystems as well as to rural communities.

Carlos Valderrama, head of the WebConserva foundation, told The Times: “We don’t want to slaughter hundreds of animals – nobody wants to see a killing of that scale, and for animal welfare reasons it’s not the most advisable thing to do.

“They put us in a difficult position in which we have to choose between the wellbeing of our ecosystems, of thousands of native animals, for some hippos that should not even be here.

“From an ecological point of view, the responsible thing to do is to eradicate these animals.”

David Echeverri Lopez who leads the Biodiversity Management Office of Cornare – a regional agency tasked with helping address the hippo problem – also warned in a chat with The Times: “We have a major problem that exceeds the administrative capacities to deal with it. There’s quite a high level of complexity involved.”

Studies say if Escobar’s beasts were allowed to continue reproducing at their current rate, Colombia could have more than 1,400 by 2034.

Hunters have failed to kill the drug lord’s hippos and the castration solution has stalled.

One hippo called Napolitano was sedated, placed in a cage and flown by military helicopter to be castrated.

But when the helicopter’s engine overheated due to his weight it only narrowly avoided crashing.

After Escobar’s death in a rooftop gunfight in Medellin in 1993 aged 44, his hippos were left to run wild at the cocaine baron’s vast Hacienda Napoles private estate.

By 2009, the original four hippos imported by the drug titan to his estate in the 1980s had multiplied to about 27.