When the drug lord's private zoo was abandoned in 1993, four hippos were left in a lake because they were too dangerous to move. With no droughts and no predators, they bred into the largest invasive animal population on Earth — and scientists can't agree whether they're a catastrophe or an accidental resurrection of the Ice Age.
The herd running wild across Escobar's decaying estate, Hacienda Nápoles — the surreal starting point for the whole saga.
How four smuggled African hippos became a self-sustaining wild population moving north up the Magdalena River, into towns and schoolyards.
Why a 3,000-pound aquatic mammal breeding twice as fast as it does in Africa is a uniquely unstoppable ecological problem.
Proof the population is still exploding: calves keep appearing faster than anyone can count, let alone control.
The heretical twist: researchers argue the hippos fill an ecological niche left empty since giant llamas and other megafauna went extinct 11,000 years ago.
The current plan — dart, anaesthetize, and surgically sterilize a 3-ton animal in a river — and why it may already be too late to win.
A long-view look at how the herd is physically reshaping the Magdalena's waterways — the ecosystem-engineer effect playing out in real time.