Please invest in Our Daily Planet today, by making a one time or monthly contribution.
We do not charge our readers a subscription fee for our content. We want to continue to grow our readership, particularly among millennials and public servants. Voluntary contributions from readers will help us employ interns and freelance journalists, expand our content, and reach a larger audience.
If you make a contribution of $150 or more, you will become an official “Friend of the Planet” and receive a Friend of the Planet T-shirt or water bottle.
Our Daily Planet is a daily morning email (M-F) to keep you informed of the stories shaping our environment. If these issues matter to you, we’d like to be the best ten minutes of your morning.
While many of us have probably read about Pablo Escobar’s hippos that escaped his zoo, it’s been unclear to biologists what sort of impact the hippos have had on Colombian ecosystems. There are currently 80-100 animals in the Magdalena River and researchers estimate that in 20-40 years there could be thousands.
As NatGeo explained, for over a decade the Colombian government has been pondering how to best curb the growing population, a strategy largely supported by conservation experts. But not everyone is on board. Without direct evidence that the animals are doing harm, some ecologists argue that there’s no reason to cull or relocate them.
However now, UC San Diego biologist Jonathan Shurin who has been working with the Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia has been measuring the hippos’ impact on their new realm and has some new insights to report. Mainly, that it’s complicated!
What’s Happening: Shurin found that most locals aren’t too concerned about the hippos–they leave them be and tourism to see them hasn’t picked up in any significant way. However, hippos eat A LOT. They spend most of the nigh grazing on grass and spend most of the day eliminating their “organic material.” As the LA Times explained, this “organic material,” fuels algae blooms, alters oxygen levels and may lead to fish die-offs. If the hippo pods continue to grow at their current pace, there’s also the danger that they’ll deplete local grasslands.
Around Hacienda Nápoles, Shurin and his colleagues took water samples from 14 small lakes, two with hippo populations and 12 without.
“The effects of hippos on the aquatic environment that we observe,” the researchers wrote in the journal Ecology, “suggest that sustained population growth poses a threat to water quality in lakes and rivers as they expand their range throughout Magdalena Medio watershed and potentially colonize new regions on the Caribbean slope of Colombia.”
Additionally, David Echeverri, a researcher with the Colombian government’s environmental agency Cornare, which is overseeing management of the animals, explained to NatGeo that he has no doubt they act like an invasive species. If allowed to remain unchecked, they will displace endemic animals like otters and manatees, he says. They also pose a danger to local residents since they can be territorial and aggressive, though no serious injuries or deaths have occurred as yet.
What’s The Plan: As the LA Times noted, at present, though, there is no strategy to keep this population in check. Colombian officials told Shurin there was no money to fund a sterilization campaign, and the locals are opposed to culling the herd.
Why This Matters: Smaller invasive species are generally viewed as disruptive (or even disastrous) to local ecosystems, but we’re still learning about the impacts that larger invasive species have on their new homes. In the case of Australia’s camels, their herds have been slated for culling by the government, but it’s hard to assess this decision as the Australian government has overestimated kangaroo populations to justify cruel “roo culls.” Humans have altered the distribution of nature so profoundly that it’s difficult to know what’s what. The best we can do is use data and science to help manage nature in a good-faith way.
by Natasha Lasky, ODP Staff Writer A new study suggests that baby sharks are being born tiny, tired, and malnourished as a result of rising temperatures in the ocean. Scientists analyzed the effects of warming waters on young epaulette sharks — a small, egg-laying species that lives in the Great Barrier Reef. These researchers examined […]
Why this Matters: The virus can mutate in animals and spread back to humans, producing newer —and potentially deadlier—variants of COVID-19, though this is rare.
In a story for the New York Times,Sam Anderson documents the lonely lives of the two beautiful creatures and details what we lose when a species vanishes before one’s eyes — it brings gravity to the extinction process that numbers and statistics just can’t.
Why This Matters: In 2019, the United Nations released a report detailing accelerating extinction rates.
Subscribe to the email that top lawmakers, renowned scientists, and thousands of concerned citizens turn to each morning for the latest environmental news and analysis.
Want the lastest climate news summarized for you each morning?
Our Daily Planet is your daily dose of the stories shaping our world and the ways that you can take action. From the climate crisis to the protection of biodiversity, if these issues matter to you then please subscribe & stay informed!
Your privacy is Important! We promise never to use your email address to send you spam or advertisements.