Their attorneys argued that because advocates for the hippos can bring lawsuits to protect their interests in Colombia that the hippos should be allowed to be considered “interested persons” under US law. The animal rights group based near San Francisco said it believes it’s the first time animals have been declared legal persons in the US. In the suit, attorneys for the Animal Legal Defense Fund asked the US District Court in Cincinnati to give “interested persons” status to the hippos so that two wildlife experts in sterilization from Ohio could be deposed in the case.įederal magistrate Judge Karen Litkovitz in Cincinnati granted the request on Oct. A government agency has started sterilizing some of the hippos, but there is a debate on what are the safest methods. They are advocating for some of the animals to be killed.
Luis Bernardo Cano/picture-alliance/dpa/APĪ group of scientists has warned that the hippos pose a major threat to the area’s biodiversity and could lead to deadly encounters with humans. The hippos, which the drug lord Pablo Escobar once brought to Colombia, have multiplied so much that the country is looking for a solution for the animals. Hippo lady Vanessa comes out of her pond at the “Hacienda N’poles”. After his death in a 1993 shootout with authorities, the hippos were abandoned at the estate and left to thrive with no natural predators - their numbers have increased in the last eight years from 35 to somewhere between 65 and 80. The “cocaine hippos” are descendants of animals that Escobar illegally imported to his Colombian ranch in the 1980s when he reigned over the country’s drug trade. It will be the Colombian authorities who decide what to do with the hippos and not the American ones,” said Camilo Burbano Cifuentes, a criminal law professor at the Universidad Externado de Colombia. “The ruling has no impact in Colombia because they only have an impact within their own territories. But the order won’t carry any weight in Colombia where the hippos live, a legal expert said. The case involves a lawsuit against the Colombian government over whether to kill or sterilize the hippos whose numbers are growing at a fast pace and pose a threat to biodiversity.Īn animal rights groups is hailing the order as a milestone victory in the long-sought efforts to sway the US justice system to grant animals personhood status. The offspring of hippos once owned by Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar can be recognized as people or “interested persons” with legal rights in the US following a federal court order. The farmer who faked his own death to work for Pablo Escobar - and the CIAĬolombia begins sterilizing Pablo Escobar’s hipposĬolombia’s ‘cocaine hippos’ must be stopped, scientists warn Inside Pablo Escobar’s Mexican hideout-turned-hotel for A-listers
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