There’s been a lot of talk about cocaine-related animals in media lately, with the release of the modern B-movie Cocaine Bear, which is loosely based around a true story wherein a bear had stumbled upon a drug cache, and decided to consume something on the order of 2 kilos of pure Bolivian white. I suppose that would have made him the most dangerous apex predator on the planet until such time as he had a heart attack and died. Cocaine hippos, though? Well, that’s a matter which requires a little more explanation.
Let me start by setting the scene: it’s the 1980s, at the height of the drug war. You’re a rich cartel leader who knows no bounds in furnishing your many houses to the height of opulence.
For some reason, this opulence included a whack of hippopotamuses. Hippopotami? Er, let’s just say "a gang of hippos." Also, many other illegally obtained exotic animals.
The cartel leader was Pablo Escobar. He was basically a household name in both the USA and his native Colombia, running an empire of cocaine production for export to the drug-hungry United States, where he could make more money than selling it to the other less-developed countries around him. It was a high-risk game, and everyone knew he was playing it. The locals in Colombia thought of him as a Godfather-like figure who was typically benevolent with his money, helping the poor and the community at times but also capable of great violence and anger.
A lifetime of building a blow empire naturally leads to fantastic wealth. So, what does one do with such wealth? Build a bunch of nice houses, get some cool cars, buy crazy art, and dress like some sort of pimp crossed with a soccer player. Sure, all that sort of thing. This includes a ranch full of animals, some of which were hippos.
I must wonder how the whole hippo thing came to the table. Did someone bend his ear and say something like, "I know a guy who has a hookup on some hippos," or did he have a natural inclination or fascination with them already? It doesn’t seem to me like one would really need to be talked into buying hippos, and it’s not like a used hippo salesman is waiting at the lot to try and sucker you in. It definitely feels like something you’d have to be determined to do. I don’t think that the words "fuck it, I guess I’ll take the hippo" have ever been uttered. This leads me to my next line of inquiry: where in the hell do you get hippos? They aren’t from South America, they’re from halfway around the world in Africa, and I’m pretty sure you can’t just put them in a pet carrier on a Delta Airlines flight. Though I dunno, they kinda let a lot of stuff slide back then in the good old pre-TSA days.
So, now we know why they are cocaine hippos. They didn’t do any cocaine...well, so far as I know. Getting a hippo all coked out seems like a bad idea, given that they are quite seriously the most deadly animal in Africa, killing something around 500 people per year, and also that it would probably take a phenomenal amount of hippo nose candy to get them geeked and ready for the club. No, they were merely purchased with drug money. The cost Mr. Escobar paid for three females and one male hippo is unknown, as it was not exactly listed in his expense accounting, but they have had a long-term impact.
Pablo Escobar died in 1993 after a rival who was in government sent a hit squad of special forces soldiers to "bring him in." This resulted in a running gun battle in the middle of a residential neighborhood and ended with Pablo taking bullets in many places, which led to his demise. He died on a rooftop, riddled with gunshot wounds, and remains dead to this day. His funeral was attended by roughly 25,000 people, but enough about him.
Following his death, all his various properties were either confiscated by the government or simply left to rot. The ranch, Hacienda Napoles, was one of those left to rot (until relatively recently, when it was bought and turned into an amusement park). Sometime after his death, the hippos made a daring escape and went to Colombia’s vast and expansive Magdalena River for bold aquatic adventures.
What’s the problem? Well, hippos are considered one of the most invasive species in the world, behind zebra mussels, Asian carp, kudzu, and cane toads. They consume native vegetation at an alarming rate in order to sustain their massive bulk, erode riverbanks, spray their feces everywhere (search "hippo muck spreading" online if you really wanna know about that one), and are generally dickheads—occasionally even attacking humans, who must surely say to themselves, "Is that a fucking hippo?" before running. Though, since it is Colombia, they probably say it in Spanish. "Eso es un jodido hipopótamo"
As it goes, that one male with a small harem of lady hippos, having no natural predators and free reign in the tropical rivers of Colombia, exploded in population. They’ve likely gotta be inbred as hell, but that ain’t stoppin’ ’em from fucking. From four simple country hippos has come a population estimated between 180 and 215 of them as of the beginning of 2023. Hippo females gestate for approximately eight months (thanks, National Geographic, for that fact) and can reproduce every other year. Given that they can squirt out calves for nearly their entire up-to-forty-year lives...that’s a lot of hippos.
Efforts being made to stop these hippos have included the following:
Criticism of these measures has been drawn by some of the citizens, who apparently are not concerned about "animal rights" or any of that horse shit, but instead, because they, being an industrious people, had built small resort-like settings where tourists come exclusively to see the hippos! Truth really is stranger than fiction.
Speaking of truth being stranger than fiction, a judge in the USA had declared that these hippos could be legally recognized as having the rights of persons. Of course, US law has no bearing on Colombia, who likely heard about this and said something to the effect of, "If you wanna take these hippos, put little hats on them or something, and let them fuck up your shit instead of ours, be our guest."
Thus, the hippo population continues to grow out of control. So long as nobody has a decent solution, it will continue to expand until such time as the population of Colombia is entirely made up of hippopotamuses. This friends, is the Curse of the Cocaine Hippos.*
Whose side will you take in the upcoming human/hippo wars?
Enjoy life, and don’t get killed by a hippo.**
-Wombstretcha
*Which I realize, in hindsight, sounds like the title of a fucked-up Nancy Drew book.
**The word "hippo" was used 39 times in this article.
Wombstretcha the Magnificent is a non-Colombian, cocaine skeptic, hippo enthusiast, writer, and retired rapper from Portland, OR. He can be found at Wombstretcha.com, on Twitter as @Wombstretcha503 and on Facebook (boo!) and MeWe (yay!) as "Wombstretcha The Magniflcent."
