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Given the unchecked spread of the descendants of Pablo Escobar's hippos, authorities and institutions in Colombia are looking for a joint solution.
"We have applied to the Colombian embassy in the United States for assistance in purchasing a long-term contraceptive for large animals," said a statement from the regional environmental agency Cornare.
Together with the Ministry of the Environment, the Instituto Humboldt and universities in the South American country, the decision on the future of the “cocaine hippos” is subject to it.
Colombian and Mexican researchers recently recommended killing the animals in a study.
The drug lord Escobar once brought four African hippos to his Hacienda Nápoles, most recently an estimated 65 to 80 animals roamed the region.
They destroy fields, unbalance the ecosystem and endanger local residents.
The experts fear that the reproductive animals will settle in larger parts of Colombia.
The Hacienda Napoles Park in Puerto Triunfo
Source: AP / Fernando Vergara
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After Escobar was shot dead by security forces in 1993, the Hacienda Nápoles fell into disrepair.
The hippos migrated to the surrounding forests and reproduced.
"That (killing) is an option that has always been on the table, but it is not the easiest," Cornare biologist David Echeverri told El Tiempo.
The Cornare environment agency has been investigating the incidence of hippos in the Antioquia department, in which the Hacienda Nápoles is located, for years.
Other options, such as chemical castration, were now also being examined.