![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/hippo-300x200.jpg\")
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Just when you thought the last drop of Stupid had been squeezed out of that turnip.<\/p>\n
Pablo Edcobar was an interesting fellow. Didn’t end well for him, and you can’t take it with you. Including the spawn of his hippos, apparently. What to do with these waifs?<\/p>\n
Fortunately, with all other ills in this country solved, our Federal Government has decided to protect the introduced species from the Columbians, who are very interested in controlling the beasts. Go figure.<\/p>\n
AW1 Rod sends.<\/p>\n
Recognition as \u2018interested persons\u2019 is a legal first in the US, allowing animals to have their interests heard in court<\/em><\/p>\n The offspring of hippos once owned by Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar can be recognized as people or \u201cinterested persons\u201d with legal rights in the US following a federal court order.<\/p>\n The case involves a lawsuit against the Colombian government over whether to kill or sterilize the hippos, whose numbers are growing at a fast pace and pose a threat to biodiversity.<\/p>\n An animal rights groups is hailing the order as a milestone victory in the longstanding efforts to sway the US justice system to grant animals personhood status. But the order will not carry any weight in Colombia where the hippos live, a legal expert said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe ruling has no impact in Colombia because they only have an impact within their own territories. It will be the Colombian authorities who decide what to do with the hippos and not the American ones,\u201d said Camilo Burbano Cifuentes, a criminal law professor at the Universidad Externado de Colombia.<\/p>\n The \u201ccocaine hippos\u201d are descendants of animals that Escobar illegally imported to his Colombian ranch in the 1980s when he reigned over the country\u2019s drug trade. After his death in a 1993 shootout with authorities, the hippos were abandoned at the estate and left to thrive, with no natural predators. Their numbers have increased in the last eight years from 35 to somewhere between 65 and 80.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Can’t imagine why the Columbians are leery of 3000 pound water pigs with really bad attitudes. The Guardian<\/a><\/p>\n Thanks, Rod.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\nThen again, the pig ‘Q would be epic.<\/p>\n