The plan to move the hippos has been in the works for more than a year, and they would be lured into large containers with food and then transferred by truck to an airport in Rionegro, where they would be flown to sanctuaries and zoos in India and Mexico, reported AP.
The hippos, who are territorial and weigh three tons, are descended from the four hippos that were illegally imported from Africa by drug lord Pablo Escobar in the 1980s
The hippo population has expanded to more than 100 since the drug kingpen's 1993 death, and officials say they need to be moved to protect the ecosystem.
Dozens of the invasive behemoths, descended from 4 imported by the 1980s drug lord, are thriving in the region around his former ranch. Colombia wants to ship some of them to Mexico and India.
Colombia is proposing transferring at least 70 hippopotamuses that live near Pablo Escobar’s former ranch to India and Mexico as part of a plan to control their population