From "The Fight to Euthanize Pablo Escobar’s Hippos in Colombia/Colombia is planning to cull a population of wild hippos, the offspring of the drug lord’s pets, dividing a town where hippos are the main draw" (NYT).
It sounds easy. Kill them all. It's an invasive species — dangerous and damaging — and huge.
But no: "The hippos have long lent a touch of magical realism to daily life in Doradal. Visitors are greeted by kitschy hippo statues, locals offer hippo-watching tours and some residents have reportedly stolen baby hippos to try to breed them as pets. Many residents regard the beasts with a mix of pride, pity and prudence...."
Magical realism? The literary style? Is this related to "One Hundred Years of Solitude"? Would that be about attracting tourists to Colombia — readers who romanticize the destination and can be drawn into thinking they can see something dreamlike here — or is it about some kind of genuine culture of incorporating amazing new things into the traditional world?
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27 comments:
In the western USA, horses that got loose and went feral became mesteños --> mustangs -> the name for a Ford car.
We don't need no stinkin' magical realism to make money. We've got kitschy special edition V8s, convertibles, and electric versions. And we had the glorious Mustang II of the 1970s.
In my teaching days I would take about attempts to reduce the rat population, I think in Brazil. Offer payment for a rat tail or corpse. What happens? A student would usually get it. People breed rats in order to collect the bounty. Wild pigs in Texas and Florida are bred for hunting; government agencies are trying to reduce the numbers.
Recall that the hippo, by far, kills more humans in Africa than any other large animal. Nasty, deadly beasts.
Oh brother. I cannot understand a trophy shot being controversial. They killed a freaking hippo! In Colombia! That's worth a trophy shot.
This helps to put problems associated with rat infestations in proportion. On the plus side, hippo infestations are less scary than bear incursions. I think the worst must be rattlesnake infestations. Never build your home in a rattlesnake breeding area......What with Combat, we've really got cockroaches under control here in NYC.
When you travel a bit and get out in nature ‘invasive species’ invade everyplace. Most of the time due to man’s intervention but sometimes by natural accident. No matter. Problem is the natural ‘purity’ these initiatives try to achieve never really materializes. New Zealand is full of invasive species, brought over for sport, pets, etc. Most of them are incompatible with their flightless native birds and their native plants. NZ is trying but they won’t ever eradicate it all. Plus they like many of them- monster Brown Trout are fun to catch and bring tourists with lots of money. I don’t know about the hippos- it’s fun when they laugh but they’re dangerous. Columbia did everything the US demanded of them and now they want their own economy. Maybe the hippos get to stay so tourists come.
- End of meander
Democrats are trying to figure out how they can get hippos mail in ballots and refugee status as we speak.
Magical Realism meets suicidal empathy. It would be the 'realism' part that worries me, those beasts are more nimble than you think, highly territorial, quick to anger, and faster than you are. Sure, honey, pet the hippo. Wear flowers, to save time.
Natural selection, when trying to make a hippo a pet, takes too long.
Don't give the "Save the Salmon" people any more ideas for how to discourage fishing! They might try it in the Columbia River since it's working so well in the Colombia River.
Here's a video of two hippos fighting in a tourist camp. Totally magical and very real:
https://youtu.be/pSNSJHEmjUI
What do we do when we realize that sometimes, WE are the invasive species?
This will be a Gutfeld joke, with the punchline being a pic of the ladies of The View. CC, JSM
Lloyd
Ranchers in Texas will pay you to kill feral hogs.
Suicidal empathy - I think there’s a book called that.
baghdadbob
And a lot of the stuff was gone before we,(europeans), got here. Giant sloths. Wooly mamoths, prairie caribou, dire wolves, giant prairie beaver. woodland bison, lowland moose.
And then came the steel plow.
"Colombia is planning to cull a population of wild hippos, the offspring of the drug lord’s pets, dividing a town where hippos are the main draw."
Sixty years back, San Francisco's Board of Supervisors thought their new crop of colorful colonist would be a boon to tourism. If only they had had the foresight of Columbia's government, and culled those lolling beasts rather than indulging them tendency to befoul, sinking Baghdad by the Bay would still be the charming Yerba Buena.
@Quaestor --
The new SF attractions included counting street tents, jumping over unconscious people on sidewalks, the poop collecting game, and bounties for finding needles in the grass at Mission Dolores Park.
My BFF Gemini says
"(H)ippo meat is edible and consumed as a delicacy in some parts of Africa, often described as a tender, fatty, and slightly gamey meat that tastes similar to beef or pork. While it was once considered as a potential food source for the US in the early 20th century, modern consumption is rare, largely illegal, and carries risks."
You can lay in a side of hippo and eat for a month of Sundays.
@Enigma --
I hoped my implied pun would slightly brighten someone's morning.
Humorous Headline:
Hippo Hoovers Humongous Heap of Devil's Dandruff…
While it was once considered as a potential food source for the US in the early 20th century
Geez. Imagine being a hippo rancher. What a terrifying job. Getting them into the truck to transport them to the slaughterhouse - whatever the current most dangerous job in America is, I'll bet that would surpass it, fast. (I'm assuming the actual slaughtering would be done at some kind of distance! Shoot them, or something!)
Great... another irrational fear to add to my list: hippo attack, whenever the bottom of a body of fresh water isn't visible. My daughter once levitated out of the water when something, I'm guessing a catfish, put her whole toe in its mouth in the ridiculously named Clear Lake outside Houston - now I'll be assuming that I'm about to be crushed and then swallowed whole.
Amy Klobuchar is a descendant of the Giant Prairie Beaver…
and she’s known to eat salads with a comb!
How many tourists realize that hippos aren't indigenous to South America? For some, Columbia may just be generic Adventureland.
I hear hippo tastes just like chicken.
I'm thinking "indigenous" is a pretty malleable word. Who or what is really indigenous to anywhere? Perhaps the Garden of Eden was the only place on earth with actual indigenous life forms? Seems like a lot of DNA traces back to North Africa/ME region (usually written MENA).
I'm sure they will be easy to get rid of just like feral pigs and Asian carp.
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