Colombia's $3.5m bill to relocate Pablo Escobar's hippos

Colombia plans to transfer 70 "cocaine hippos" left behind by deceased drug lord Pablo Escobar to overseas sanctuaries, with a cost of $3.5 million. The hippos were brought to Colombia in the late 1980s and have since multiplied to about 150 animals, causing havoc to the local ecosystem. The transfer plan is seen as a life-saving measure as the hippos have no natural predators in Colombia and consume considerable amounts of grassland and produce significant waste, which poisons the rivers. Colombia had tried a sterilization program to control the population, but it failed.