Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, founder of the Medellín cartel, was shot dead by police during an attempt to arrest him in December 1993. Escobar had made a vast fortune trading cocaine, which was sold mainly in the US.
His home base was an estate called Hacienda Nápoles. The ranch had an airstrip and the Jurassic Park-inspired grounds featured dinosaur statues. Escobar also had a bullfighting arena constructed as well as a zoo that housed elephants, rhinos and giraffes, among other animals.
‘He had also acquired four hippos from the US for his private zoo,’ says Raf De Bont. The professor of history of science and the environment at Maastricht University will be giving a lecture at the Moving Animals science festival, which takes place at Naturalis on 2 February.
‘After Escobar’s death, his hacienda became derelict and the hippos escaped,’ says De Bont. ‘Although they naturally occur in Africa, they also proved to thrive very well in the South American jungle. This didn’t pose a problem at first. It even turned into something of a tourist attraction. The village that hardly anyone ever visited suddenly attracted crowds.’
SHOOTING
However, the population was growing rapidly. ‘Before long, there were hundreds of them. Those hippos eat an enormous amount of food and have a huge impact on the ecosystem.’ Certain plants and animals were forced away as a result. ‘It was turning into a biodiversity problem, according to the Colombian government.’ The hippos also attacked people sometimes, so the decision was made to shoot them.
‘Surprisingly, this was met with opposition from animal rights activists in the United States. The activists filed a lawsuit against the Colombians. The hippos had to be protected.’ Attempts to sterilise the animals then proved insufficiently effective. ‘They reproduce faster than the rate at which the programme can be implemented. Now, finally, a plan has been conceived to capture some 70 of the animals and fly them over to zoos in Mexico and India.’
The big misconception, De Bont argues, is that all animals belong to an eternal, unchanging natural environment. ‘That is, of course, not true. The existence of these hippos has been shaped entirely by the consequences of drug trafficking. They are modern hippos, and a fine example of the fact that animals have a specific history of their own.’
De Bont is the coordinator of the NWO VICI project ‘Moving Animals: A History of Science, Media and Policy in the Twentieth Century’. In this project, he and his team investigate how people have studied, portrayed and directed the movements of wild animals over long distances.
The drug lord’s hippos accidentally ended up in the Colombian jungle, but in some cases, animals are deliberately introduced to solve a problem somewhere - sometimes with disastrous consequences. ‘One of my PhD candidates is conducting research on the Indian mongoose. A predator, that, as its name suggests, can be found in parts of Asia. In the late 19th century, this animal was released into the Caribbean to control rats - another invasive species by the way - for example on sugar cane plantations in Jamaica.’
HAVOC
Those rats were devastating to the environment, so the mongooses were supposed to save agriculture. But the thing was: ‘The mongooses felt quite at home on the plantations and did not exclusively target rats as prey. They also ate all kinds of birds and reptiles; they truly wreaked havoc. Among conservationists, this is a prime example of man as the sorcerer’s apprentice: before you know it, you lose control over the broom. Relocating animals can have all sorts of unexpected consequences.
Another apt example is the so-called ruddy duck. ‘This is a duck species from America. It’s a beautiful bird, the male has a striking blue bill.’ In 1948, a collector in England imported three pairs of these birds. ‘Some of these ruddy ducks then escaped. At first, this didn’t seem to be a problem, as it was a fine addition to the wildlife. The ruddy ducks then spread across continental Europe where they were found to interbreed with the white-headed duck. The latter species was already under pressure, and there were conservation programmes in place.’
The media portrayed it as if the white-headed duck was facing extinction because the males couldn’t compete with the more aggressive seduction skills of the attractive ruddy ducks. The result: ruddy ducks were shot everywhere.
Apart from moving animals, a changing landscape can also drastically alter animal populations. For example, an increasing number of storks, which used to migrate to Africa in winter, are now staying behind in Europe.
‘In Spain, there are a lot of open landfills, which are mostly associated with seagulls, but storks can also find food there all year round.
‘Initially, it was just a few “opportunistic” storks that stopped migrating to Africa: it’s much easier to stay in Spain, after all. Then it turned out that the storks that stayed behind were doing much better than those that left. Of course, migration is an extremely dangerous undertaking. By the time the exhausted Africa-goers returned to Europe, the Spanish birds had already laid eggs. So they were a step ahead. Now, more and more storks are forgoing the trip to Africa.’
Again, conservationists took action. ‘They advocated against EU legislation banning open landfills. Because there is fear that without these landfills, the stork population will collapse.’
The Spanish birds are also changing. ‘These storks feed on, among other things, an invasive species of crayfish in Spain. Because of the pigment in those crayfish, their bill and legs are turning redder. So these are modern storks, different from those that lived a hundred years ago.’
ICON
De Bont has also seen how the perspective on animal species can gradually change over time. For example, the status of the wild European hamster in Dutch Limburg has increased significantly. ‘At one point, there were only 15 of them left. Great investments were then made to maintain that population. By contrast, in the nineteenth century, these creatures were actively combated. They were truly seen as an invasive plague. Now, the European hamster has become an icon of the region.’
Equally fascinating is the public perception of the return of the wolf to the Netherlands. ‘Nature conservation has become immensely popular, but it often concerns animals we don’t encounter in the wild ourselves. The general public’s focus is often on gorillas, pandas and tigers. In a way, this is easy for us, of course: we don’t have to deal with Bengal tigers here, but for people in Bangladesh and India, it’s quite a different story. When it comes to protecting wolves, many people suddenly see the problem now, because they kill sheep. So it’s more convenient to direct campaigns to protecting animals in a distant “wilderness”.’
Science festival Moving Animals, lectures, films and workshops on the history and biology of animals in motion, Naturalis, Friday 2 February, 19.00-22.00