Officials in Colombia on Monday authorized the culling of dozens of hippos after their numbers in the country surged dramatically over the years. The hippos, which are native to Africa, arrived in Colombia in the 1980s when Pablo Escobar illegally brought several exotic animals into the country, including four hippos. After Escobar's death in 1993, the animals escaped into the wild and began reproducing rapidly.

Zoologist Tiit Maran told ERR that the Magdalena River, where the African species now lives, is an ideal habitat for hippos — something reflected in the explosive growth of the population. In addition to affecting other animals, the invasive species is also causing problems for people.

"A hippo is not some cute little pet, it is a large creature weighing up to two metric tons," Maran emphasized.

He pointed out that if their numbers are not controlled, the population could reach 1,000 by 2030.

However, Escobar's hippos are not the only animals in the world to have established themselves far from their native habitat. In England, for example, people can see Bennett's wallabies, which were introduced to parks near London in the 19th century. According to Maran, the wallabies that escaped from the parks over the years are not dangerous, only unusual.

"They have done extremely well. From time to time some smaller groups disappear, then new ones appear somewhere else, but they have remained there permanently."

In northern Italy, meanwhile, concern is growing over the eastern gray squirrel, originally from North America, which escaped from a private collection and is displacing the familiar red squirrel as it spreads across Europe.

"Europe's climate, all the way to Estonia, is ideal for it. Theoretically, it could live in Estonia too. It is larger, stronger and carries a certain viral disease that does not affect it, but is fatal to our red squirrel," Maran explained.

Visitors to western and southern Europe may also notice parrots. Maran said these are usually rose-ringed parakeets from India and Africa and monk parakeets from South America.

"There are fewer monk parakeets, but the main problem with them is that they build large communal nests out of twigs that can weigh 100 kilograms or more. If one of those nests is built on power lines, the lines cannot withstand it. They simply have to be controlled because they cause problems," Maran said, giving another example of how invasive species can affect people.

Raccoons have also become very well established in Europe. They were introduced in Hesse in 1934 as game animals. During the Second World War, the animals escaped and spread and it is now estimated that there are more than four million raccoons in Europe.

According to Maran, it is only a matter of time before raccoons reach Estonia because they have already spread to Lithuania.

"In five years, it is reasonable to assume that the first individuals will likely appear in Estonia," he said.

In Florida, meanwhile, concern centers on pythons that were brought home as ill-considered pets and later released into the wild once they grew unmanageably large.

"So they estimate that there are somewhere between 50,000 and 300,000 of them in the wild there. They create problems because they eat a great many species," Maran said.

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