Ambani seeks Colombian halt to hippo cull, proposes relocation to India

Anant Ambani has asked Colombia to halt its planned hippo cull and instead move the animals to Vantara, his animal centre in Jamnagar, Gujarat, a proposal that puts a celebrity rescue offer directly against a government campaign to control one of the country’s most unusual invasive species.

Colombia authorized the plan on April 13 to begin controlling the hippos in the second half of 2026, starting with the euthanasia of 80 animals in the Magdalena River basin. Environment Minister Irene Vélez said the country has about 200 hippos in the central region and warned the population could reach 1,000 by 2035 if authorities do not act. The ministry has said the animals threaten villagers, ecosystems and native species, and the cull would be Colombia’s first sanctioned lethal control of the hippos in 40 years.

The animals are descendants of just four hippos illegally imported from Africa by drug lord Pablo Escobar in the 1980s for his private zoo at Hacienda Nápoles. After Escobar’s death, the hippos went feral and spread through Colombian waterways, becoming both a tourism draw and a policy problem. Officials have long struggled to contain them. Earlier sterilization and relocation efforts did not solve the population growth, and the animals’ genetic defects from inbreeding have made some institutions less willing to take them.

Ambani’s pitch is a different kind of intervention. He formally requested that the Colombian government stay the decision to kill the animals and allow a “safe, scientifically led translocation” to Vantara, which says it shelters more than 150,000 animals representing more than 2,000 species. Reliance Foundation launched the centre in 2024, and the proposal would require Colombia to weigh not only the fate of the hippos, but also the credibility of a cross-border relocation plan for a species that has already outgrown past containment efforts.

The practical question is as large as the ethical one. Colombia has budgeted about 7.2 billion Colombian pesos, roughly $2 million, for the cull plan. That figure underscores the state’s calculation: relocation would have to be fast, secure and large-scale enough to move animals that now roam freely through a region where they can displace wildlife, alter waterways and pose risks to nearby communities. Ambani’s offer may soften the optics, but it does not erase the costs, logistics or precedent of deciding when an invasive species must be removed rather than saved.