Barrancabermeja asked Colombia's Ministry of Environment on May 8 to prioritize the city in its shock plan for hippo control after identifying three of the animals in two areas of town. Leonardo Granados said the request was necessary because the population is already living with a problem that has moved beyond theory and into daily life.

"We want Barrancabermeja to be prioritized within the protocol for handling the hippo species because we already have three identified in two areas," Granados said. He added that the authorities had also held sensitization workshops with residents about control measures and that the city had been working to address a problem that "each day generates fear in the community."

The issue has now reached one of Colombia's most sensitive environmental debates, with local officials pressing for fast action while national authorities weigh how to handle an animal whose numbers have grown well beyond the original escape. Barrancabermeja is 230 kilometers from Hacienda Nápoles, the estate where Pablo Escobar introduced four hippos in the 1980s for his private zoo, and the city sits near Colombia's main oil refinery, which gives the local alarm added weight.

The Barrancabermeja government met with the Ministry of Environment, Cornare and the Procuraduría Delegada para Asuntos Ambientales y Agrarios to coordinate a priority control plan for the animals. Granados said the city's concern was not only the risk to native species but also to people who make their living on the water. "This serious problem puts native species and also fishermen at risk," he said.

That local plea came as the government continues to work under the Ministry of Environment's latest hippo management plan, approved in April, which includes euthanasia of 80 hippos and transfers to custody centers. The plan is part of an effort to control a population that began with four animals brought by Escobar for his private zoo and then spread after his death in December 1993, when the hippos escaped and moved into riverbank habitats along the Magdalena River.

There is also a possible international route for some of the animals. The Indian organization Vantara has proposed taking the 80 hippos to its private rescue center and zoo in Jamnagar, Gujarat, and Minister Irene Vélez said the group will visit Colombia in the coming weeks to assess the animals and prepare a relocation proposal. Vélez also said Vantara agreed to handle the procedures in India needed for authorization to receive the hippos under CITES.

For Barrancabermeja, the immediate issue is narrower and harder to ignore: three identified hippos, two affected areas and a city asking to be placed at the front of the line. The broader question is whether a national plan built around culling, custody and possible relocation can move fast enough to keep an escaped private zoo from becoming a permanent threat in one of the country's most important river and refinery corridors.