Pablo Escobar’s ‘cocaine hippos’ are legally people, U.S. court rules
The Washington Post reports
Some 100 hippos, descended from a herd smuggled into Colombia by the notorious drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, are now recognized by a U.S. court as “interested persons” following a decision this month that is believed to be the first of its kind in the United States.
The Animal Legal Defense Fund, which sought the interested persons designation for the “cocaine hippos,” called the ruling by a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio a “critical milestone” in its larger effort to have the American legal system recognize “enforceable rights” for animals.
Legal analysts say the U.S. court order has no direct effect in Colombia. It remains to be seen what influence the ruling might have on a lawsuit there seeking to safeguard the hippos’ well-being.
Escobar smuggled several hippos onto his estate in the 1980s. Their wild descendants now roam the wetlands north of Bogotá, where they are the largest invasive species on the planet. Colombia had considered culling them, but Luis Domingo Gómez Maldonado, an animal rights lawyer, filed the lawsuit to prevent their being killed.
Colombian authorities have since said they will instead sterilize the herd with a chemical contraceptive called GonaCon, which was developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The United States has donated dozens of doses of the chemical, used to sterilize animals such as horses and deer, to Colombia.
