Pablo Escobar

Hippos wallow at a lagoon in the Hacienda Napoles Park, once the private estate of drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, in Puerto Triunfo, Colombia, Friday, April 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

Photos show hippos introduced to Colombia by Pablo Escobar as the nation debates their fate

In Colombia, hippos introduced by Pablo Escobar in the 1980s have become a major issue as the population has grown to around 200, causing safety concerns for locals and tourists.

Hippos wallow at a lagoon in the Hacienda Napoles Park, once the private estate of drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, in Puerto Triunfo, Colombia, Friday, April 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

Colombians are divided over the fate of hippos linked to Pablo Escobar

Hippos float in the lagoon at Hacienda Napoles Park, once the private estate of drug kingpin Pablo Escobar who imported three female hippos and one male decades ago in Puerto Triunfo, Colombia, Thursday, Feb. 4, 2021. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara, File)

Colombia approves plan to cull roaming hippos linked to Pablo Escobar

Colombia's President Gustavo Petro speaks after voting during legislative elections in Bogota, Colombia, Sunday, March 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

DEA names Colombian president ‘priority target’ as US prosecutors probe ties to drug traffickers

Wagner Moura poses in the press room with the award for best performance by a male actor in a motion picture – drama for "The Secret Agent" during the 83rd Golden Globes on Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

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Colombia discusses hippo relocation with Vantara after backlash over euthanasia plan

The Colombian government on Wednesday announced that Indian conservation initiative Vantara had expressed interest in relocating an invasive population of hippopotamuses in the country. (AP video shot by: Marko Alvarez)

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Invasive species: Colombians divided over plans to cull hippos linked to Pablo Escobar

Colombia approves plan to cull roaming hippos linked to Pablo Escobar

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Edgar Jimenez, known as "El Chino," gives an interview next to his photo of hippos "Adan y Eva," the first two hippos he photographed when they were brought to Colombia in the 1980s by drug lord Pablo Escobar, at a group exhibit in Bogota, Colombia, Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025. Jimenez was Escobar's personal photographer. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

Colombian artists transform Pablo Escobar’s hippos and excesses into art

Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during a joint news conference with Ecuador's Foreign Minister Gabriela Sommerfeld at the Palacio de Carondelet, in Quito, Ecuador, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)

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A car's windshield is shattered the day after a car bomb explosion outside an Air Force base in Cali, Colombia, Friday, Aug. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Santiago Saldarriaga)

Deadly attacks in Colombia cast a shadow on the president’s peace-with-guerrillas policy

Mourners carry balloons to the Cathedral in Bogota, Colombia, ahead of the funeral Mass for presidential hopeful and opposition Sen. Miguel Uribe, who died of gunshot wounds sustained at a political rally, Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)

Colombians bid farewell to presidential hopeful Uribe after shooting at political rally

Claudia Tarazona, the wife of opposition Sen. and presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe, who died from wounds suffered when he was shot during a political rally, attends a ceremony honoring her husband, at Congress in Bogota, Colombia, Monday, Aug. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

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This undated photo provided by the Colombian National Police in a March 2024 document shows Diego Marín. (Colombian National Police via AP)

An alleged smuggler to Colombia’s cartels had a secret ally: the DEA

This undated photo shows Carlos Lehder in Colombia. Lehder was one of the leaders of the Medellin cartel that dominated the global cocaine trade in the 1980s. (AP Photo/File)

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Residents cross a river to Venezuela from Colombia's Tibu, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025, following guerrilla attacks that killed dozens and forced thousands to flee their homes in the Catatumbo region. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

Colombia’s president will declare an emergency over deadly ELN attacks in the northeast

In this photo released by the Colombian Presidential Press Office, police escort Dairo Antonio Usuga, center, also known as "Otoniel," leader of the violent Clan del Golfo cartel prior to his extradition to the U.S., at a military airport in Bogota, Colombia, Wednesday, May 4, 2022. (Colombian presidential press office via AP)

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A hippo swims in the Magdalena river in Puerto Triunfo, Colombia, Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2022. Colombia's Environment Ministry announced in early Feb. that hippos are an invasive species, in response to a lawsuit against the government over whether to kill or sterilize the hippos that were imported illegally by the late drug lord Pablo Escobar, and whose numbers are growing at a fast pace and pose a threat to biodiversity. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

Locals fret as Colombia to declare hippos invasive species

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FILE—In this file photo from Feb. 4, 2021, a pink statue of a hippo greets tourists at Hacienda Napoles Park in Puerto Triunfo, Colombia. Hacienda Napoles was once a private zoo with illegally imported animals that belonged to drug trafficker Pablo Escobar. A U.S. court order says the offspring of hippos once owned by Escobar can be recognized as people with legal rights in the U.S. 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. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara, File)

US judge: Pablo Escobar’s cocaine hippos legally ‘people’

In this photo released by the Colombian presidential press office, one of the country’s most wanted drug traffickers, Dairo Antonio Usuga, alias “Otoniel,” leader of the violent Clan del Golfo cartel, is presented to the media at a military base in Necocli, Colombia, Saturday, Oct. 23, 2021. (Colombian presidential press office via AP)

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A boy rides his bicycle in a park decorated with hippo statues in Doradal, Colombia, Thursday, Feb. 4, 2021. Pablo Escobar and his Cartel de Medellin are long dead, but the hippos from his personal zoo continue to flourish in tropical countryside and wetlands in and around his former hacienda. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

Fear and love surround Escobar’s hippos thriving in Colombia

FILE - This undated photo shows Pablo Escobar’s crime partner and one of Colombia’s pioneering “cocaine cowboys” Carlos Lehder. A lawyer for Lehder says his client left on a flight for his new home in Berlin on Monday, June 15, 2020, after being released from a U.S. prison in Florida. The 70-year-old Lehder was one of the leaders with Escobar of the Medellin cartel that dominated the global cocaine trade in the 1980s. (AP Photo/File)

Pablo Escobar’s crime partner freed in US, goes to Berlin

FILE - In this June 27, 2006 file photo, Jhon Jairo Velasquez, a former hit man for Pablo Escobar, known by his nickname "Popeye," gives his testimony while holding a book titled "The True Pablo, Blood, Treason, and Death," during the trial against Alberto Santofimio Botero in Bogota, Colombia. According to authorities, Velasquez died of stomach cancer at a hospital in Bogota on Feb. 6, 2020. (AP Photo/William Fernando Martinez, File)

Pablo Escobar’s hit man, known as “Popeye,” dies of cancer

FILE - In this Nov. 7, 2002 file photo, Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela leaves the Combita maximum security prison, in Tunja, 60 miles northeast of Bogota, Colombia. Gilberto Rodriguez-Orejuela, 81, ...

Ill Cali cartel drug kingpin seeks early prison release

FILE - In this June 27, 2006, file photo, Jhon Jairo Velasquez, a former hit man for Pablo Escobar, gives his testimony while holding a book titled "The True Pablo, Blood, Treason, and Death," during the trial against Alberto Santofimio Botero in Bogota, Colombia. Colombian authorities are seeking to re-arrest the former hit man for Escobar for violating his parole after he was caught partying with a major drug trafficker. The chief prosecutor’s office said Saturday, Dec. 9, 2017, that Velasquez’s presence at a raucous birthday party for the Juan Carlos Mesa constituted a “very serious” offense. (AP Photo/William Fernando Martinez, File)

Pablo Escobar’s hit man Popeye accused of violating parole

Narco fugitives caught trying to co-opt Colombia peace deal

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