Il Nuovo Postiglione - Colombian baby hippo of Escobar stock dies after rescue

Colombia has around 200 invasive hippos living in the wild, according to the Environment Ministry, all of which stemmed from a colony brought to South America by the late cocaine kingpin. It is the largest hippo colony anywhere outside Africa.

Authorities earlier Wednesday rescued the roughly 15-day-old malnourished creature, which had been discovered by fishermen on the banks of a river without its mother.

The infant hippo "was admitted with chronic signs of dehydration, malnutrition, and an acute gastrointestinal condition that complicated its entire clinical picture," said a vet working for the environmental organization Cornare.

Despite rescue and rehydration efforts, "the animal did not respond adequately to treatment and died," the vet said.

The animal was earlier transferred to a hippo sanctuary at Hacienda Napoles, the estate previously owned by Escobar, is now a theme park.

Escobar imported four hippos in the 1980s for his private zoo at the hacienda.

After the Medellin cartel leader's death in 1993 as he tried to elude capture by police, the animals escaped and settled along the banks of the Magdalena River, where they have disrupted the ecosystem and even attacked local residents.

They are now considered an invasive species and are destabilizing native ecosystems, prompting the government this year to approve a plan to cull around 80 of them after attempts to curb their reproduction through sterilization failed.

E.Danieli--INP