Stream It Or Skip It: ‘National Geographic Investigates: Colombian Hippo Invasion’ on Hulu, Where Vets Are Trying To Manage A Species Displaced

The docuseries National Geographic Investigates: Colombian Hippo Invasion (Hulu) brings us to the South American nation’s biggest river system, where a population of giant mammals traditionally found living in Africa or safely behind enclosures in zoos has thrived in the watery, grassy environments of the country. How did the hippos get there? And who’s trying to manage this herd that has grown to be hundreds strong? Maybe for now, don’t get out of the boat. 

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC INVESTIGATES: COLOMBIAN HIPPO INVASION: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

Opening Shot: “The attack happened at 9 or 10 in the morning.” A man named Luis Diaz Flores is showing off his scars. Flores was collecting water beside the Magdalena River in Colombia when he was attacked by a hippopotamus. “When he threw me to the ground, he stepped on me with a lot of strength.” 

The Gist: The narrator of National Geographic Investigates: Colombian Hippo Invasion says no one in the South American country has been killed — yet — by the world’s third largest land animal. But while attacks like what befell Diaz Flores are rare, they illustrate the risk of having a herd of displaced, highly territorial animals foraging for meals in the lakes and rivers of western Colombia. But hey, wait a minute. What are hippos doing in South America, anyway?

As it turns out, Pablo Escobar bought a zoo. In the 1970s and ’80s, as his criminal empire thrived, the infamous drug kingpin acquired whatever came to his mind. He built Hacienda Napoles, a vast tropical estate about three hours outside Medellin, and populated it with all manner of exotic animal life, including zebras, giraffes, camels, large flightless birds, elephants, and hippos. “He wanted, in a way, to become a local Noah,” says historian Petrit Baqueroi, and the result was a thriving public attraction. Imagine the Animal Kingdom at Disney World, if it was free and you could drive your personal vehicle around on the grounds. But when Escobar was killed in 1993, the support system for his exotic menagerie disappeared, and his four original hippos became fruitful and multiplied. 

Today, wildlife veterinarian Gina Serna is part of the effort to contain the descendants of Escobar’s hippos, who number in the hundreds. But it’s tough, because the animals lurk in shallow rivers, can roam great distances in search of grass, are fiercely territorial, often crazy huge, and have the potential to carry disease. “An invasive species doesn’t behave like they would in their normal ecosystem,” Serna says, and all of this makes distributing the population to available zoos or safely sterilizing the herd a significant challenge.   

Though the Colombian government officially declared the hippos invasive in 2022, the effort to contain and safely manage the herd continues with varying degrees of success.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Hippos and other exotic and protected species are featured in Our Great National Parks, a Netflix docuseries narrated by former President Barack Obama. And in Hulu’s The Croc That Ate Jaws, environmental factors have forced violent confrontations in deep waters between powerful predators like alligators and sharks.  

Our Take: “Cocaine hippos.” What is this, the sequel to Cocaine Bear? The local nickname for the animal population that evolved from Pablo Escobar’s whim notwithstanding, having a bunch of hungry hungry hippos lumbering around in the countryside and amongst the shallows and bends of the Magdalena River has caused a headache for the Colombian government and veterinary professionals that combines animal welfare and environmental concerns with the threat to human populations and commercial fishing, which competes for resources with the hippos at a hyper-local level. National Geographic Investigates: Colombian Hippo Invasion seems to run out of room as it attempts to present these challenges. This episodic documentary feels like it could’ve easily been a standalone film, which would have allowed it to elaborate on the hippo herd management efforts of Serna, the wildlife veterinarian, her peers in the government environmental ministry, the perspective of villagers who have established a resigned coexistence with the animals, and the conflict between eco-tourism entrepreneurs and black market animal traffickers, which is only touched on here. But as it is, Hippo Invasion does offer an interesting survey of where these issues intersect, which is often at the riverside, with the watchful eyes and tremendous snouts of hippopotamus appearing just above the surface.     

Sex and Skin: None. 

Parting Shot: “I think the solution,” Gina Serna says of the wild hippo population in Colombia, “is the one we’re doing today. Capture them, taking them to zoos that are interested, and sterilizing them.” What about killing the hippos? Serna is emphatic. “Not part of the plan.”

Sleeper Star: We have to give props here to the Colombian hippo herd’s back of the baseball card stats. 8 babies born a year, every year – with hundreds of hippos living today, their number will top 400 in just a few years. And let’s check the dimensions. A healthy hippo can weigh up to nine tons, grow to 9 to 14 feet in length, has teeth that can reach two feet, and can achieve speeds of 30 miles per hour in short spurts. 

Most Pilot-y Line: Veterinarian Carlos Valderrama highlights one of the issues with having these animals hanging out unmonitored in their non-natural environment. “People really don’t realize, because we don’t have an animal like the hippos in Colombia, how dangerous they are.”

Our Call: STREAM IT. Just imagine your local state forest, national park, or even the quiet stretch of a small town business district if a three-ton hippo was suddenly trotting toward you. The random displacement of these animals is what’s so interesting about National Geographic Investigates: Colombian Hippo Invasion. 

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges