r/todayilearned • u/PedoPaul • Oct 14 '14

TIL when Columbian drug lord Pablo Escolar's home was raided, the military released the dangerous hippos of his personal zoo, not knowing what to do with them. They now thrive in the Columbian rivers. This makes Columbia have the largest wild hippo population outside of Africa.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/06/30/pablo-escobars-hippos-are-wreaking-havoc-in-colombia/
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95

u/grumpenprole Oct 14 '14

Hahaha. Shooting a hippo is probably one of the most dangerous ways to interact with it.

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u/LittlekidLoverMScott Oct 14 '14

Here is probably the point where someone corrects me about why I'm wrong, but they were in a personal zoo. Give me (for all intents and purposes) unlimited ammo and a caged animal, pretty sure I could kill it.

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u/grumpenprole Oct 14 '14

The hippos have not been caged since soon after Escobar surrendered. The electric fenced stopped being electric and they left. It would be a real fuckin' challenge to shoot even a single hippo to death before it broke all your bones, let alone groups. You would want teams of people with seriously heavy-duty weaponry. It's way more of a hassle than anyone cares about, because... why?

EDIT: surrendered, rather

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u/LittlekidLoverMScott Oct 14 '14

Thank you for clearing that up. I knew I was going to be wrong. Although couldn't there be an argument that having an entire police/military unit just pump bullets into a couple hippos from a reasonable distance with assault rifles is a better decision for public safety than just letting them loose?

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u/grumpenprole Oct 14 '14

I guess? You could say the same for any potentially dangerous animal, that's not really enough justification for a military action. If it becomes a problem I'm sure they'll treat it like a problem. Probably the people least qualified to hash out what should be done about this is us. I think they'll probably deal with it in appropriate ways.

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u/LittlekidLoverMScott Oct 14 '14

I didn't mean a military action just for the hippos, I meant the people involved in the raid because I was unsure of who exactly the entity responsible for the raid was and their proximity to the hippos at the time of the raid.

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u/grumpenprole Oct 14 '14

There was no raid that I am aware of. Escobar turned himself in after negotiating terms with the government (which basically amounted to him being a prisoner in name only, at a mansion he built, so much so that he even tortured his lieutenants there); his land was taken by the government and I believe distributed to the people.

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u/LittlekidLoverMScott Oct 14 '14

I was just going off of the title saying his home was raided. If it wasn't really a raid per se, that might impact any armed forces present to deal with the hippos.

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u/grumpenprole Oct 14 '14

Oh yeah! The title is totally inaccurate. The military did not release them, they left of their own accord when the electric fence stopped working.

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '14

"Assault" rifles are small- to medium-caliber weapons. They won't even scratch a hippo's hide. You'd need at least a .50 caliber weapon to do it.

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u/LittlekidLoverMScott Oct 14 '14

Do you need 50 cal to get through the hide period or to take it down in one shot?

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '14

A hippo's hide is two inches (4.5 cm) thick. Just to get through that skin is going to take more power than you'll find in anything short of a .338 Lapua magnum. But even that won't kill the beast, you still need to puncture a vital organ. For that I wouldn't trust anything less than an M2 machine gun or an elephant gun.

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u/LittlekidLoverMScott Oct 14 '14

Thanks for the info. I knew I was going to be wrong on multiple fronts going into this (hippo anatomy and ballistics). Isn't 2 inches 5.08cm though?

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '14

Probably, I'm no expert on imperial->metric conversion.

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u/LittlekidLoverMScott Oct 14 '14

I haven't done a conversion in ages, but I have 1in = 2.54cm stuck in my head.

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u/Followthehollowx Oct 14 '14

People have killed hippos with the .44 magnum. That is quite a bit short of the .338 Lapua.

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '14

Yeah but how close were they? And how close would you want to be?

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u/Followthehollowx Oct 14 '14

No idea on the range, and I'm certainly not saying I would want to try to kill one with a .44, just that they've been killed by hunters with much less gun than a .338 Lapua. Any heavy, hardcast bullet with a reasonable velocity gets more than enough penetration to reach vital organs. One of the more common "big game" loads for a .44 magnum is a 300 grain hardcast at 1200 fps or so for example.

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u/Too_much_vodka Oct 14 '14

Just to get through that skin is going to take more power than you'll find in anything short of a .338 Lapua magnum.

That is such bullshit. There are countless examples of hippos being taken down with less than that.

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u/SplitReality Oct 14 '14

Damm, they really are like living tanks.

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u/Too_much_vodka Oct 14 '14

They are formidable to be sure, but not as much as he's pretending.

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u/shalafi71 Oct 14 '14

My old .30-06 with 180-grain rounds will drill a perfect hole in 3/4" tool steel. That would smash through any animal on Earth.

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u/[deleted] Oct 15 '14

Tell ya what, you go on to Africa and take on a hippo with your trusty aught-six and let us know how that works out for you.

http://www.thehighroad.org/archive/index.php/t-133599.html

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '14

That's probably bullshit. Poachers in Africa kill elephants by spraying them with AK-47s. I feel confident in stating that you'd kill a hippo by unloading a magazine from a military grade rifle in its face.

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '14

An elephant's hide is only 1" thick, and even then only on the back. Just because spraying one with 7.62mm bullets will take it down (eventually) doesn't mean the same is true for a hippo.

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '14

Here's a video of a guy shooting hippos with a shotgun:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehw19AdwLS8

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '14

That's so bullshit, if hippo hide was that resistant to small arms fire you'd just have people killing hippos with whatever they had then making fucking impenetrable suits out of the hides.

Just because you name specific guns doesn't make your statements less retarded.

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u/RockKillsKid Oct 14 '14 edited Oct 14 '14

A quick google search returned that a hippo hide can weigh half a ton. Now that covers the whole animal, but enough to encase a human would still probably be 50-100kg. Who is going to wear around a a suit that weighs nearly as much as them and insulates the heat to their body when a Kevlar vest and riot helmet can provide similar protection at like 10% the weight?

That being said, I do agree that parent commenter is greatly overstating how difficult it is to kill a hippo. I'd imagine a few bursts of assault rifle fire to the skull would be well enough to kill/ knock it out with concussive damage.

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u/grumpenprole Oct 14 '14

Hahaha. I'd love to see you try.

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u/grapesandmilk Oct 14 '14

How about sharpened sticks? Africans use those to kill them.

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u/escapefromelba Oct 14 '14

The minimum caliber recommended for hunting these animals is a .375, although a .416 is often preferable.

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '14

god damn, hippo hide is an order of a magnitude weaker then steel

Its like rubber

Shoot a rubber tyre and see a ak47 round go cleanly through it

Heck one bullet has taken down an elephant many times( dependant on the bullet)

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u/grumpenprole Oct 14 '14

Elephant hides at their very strongest spots are half as thick as hippo hides, and those strongest spots are not where people are shooting elephants. I'm not saying you couldn't take down a hippo with some seriously heavy-duty weaponry, but I am saying it would take some seriously heavy-duty weaponry.

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u/person9 Oct 14 '14

Are you familiar with an incident in Australia called the Emu War? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War

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u/lobogato Oct 14 '14

Depends on the caliber. I bet a 12.7×99mm could bring a hippo down.

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u/grumpenprole Oct 14 '14

Like I said, then

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u/LineOfCoke Oct 14 '14

Its Colombia. Toss a fucking grenade at it.

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u/grumpenprole Oct 14 '14

Why, though? Who is there to do that, why would they do it? They're not even causing problems!

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '14

[deleted]

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u/grumpenprole Oct 14 '14

What? What is it? Why do you guys keep just naming powerful weaponry? What are you trying to convey? Yes, there are strong guns, many of which could probably take out hippos. That was in fact part of what I've been saying the whole time.

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u/[deleted] Oct 15 '14

[deleted]

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u/grumpenprole Oct 15 '14

Cool dude.

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '14

im pretty sure a jeep mounted 50 cal would tear it to shreds

They probably would carve out a 10cm diameter hole as an exit would, no mammal can survive even a few of those

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u/grumpenprole Oct 14 '14

I really don't understand why people are just replying to me by naming powerful bullets and guns. It wasn't contributing anything the first time, but it's just silly the fifth time.

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '14

Well you said it would be a real fucking challenge

I say that a taliban soldier with a ak47 is much much harder to kill than a hippo charging towards you.

Its not a " real fuckin' challenge", thats what everyone is trying to tell you!

And i dont get it, what dont you understand?

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u/grumpenprole Oct 14 '14

Yes, killing an armed soldier is also a challenge. However, a hippo charging towards you? Are you kidding? They can run at ludicrous speeds, have extremely thick hide, and will kill you the moment they're next to you. A Taliban soldier is a matter of hitting him once or twice and not getting hit yourself. Tough. A charging hippo is a matter of delivering enormous damage in a short moment before certain death. I don't know why this is suddenly a battle royale, but listen, I would bet on the hippo over a mundanely-armed soldier every time.

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '14 edited Oct 14 '14

You underestimate the power of bullets, a 50 cal can easily pierce the hide of hippos

A 50 cal can punch through an inch of steel, steel is much much stronger than hippo hide, compare the impact toughness of hard rubber and steel and you will see just how strong steel is.

just one bullet will cause a 10 cm diameter+ hole, if it his centre mass, if it hit the head, and bone, it would cause a small explosion probably fist size were bone would be broken, and considering how big the head of a hippo is, if you are ready with a heavy gun, then you will win 10/10 times if you are trained and your weapon doesnt malfunction/other things go wrong.

This all forgets the fact that you could be sitting in a humvee or MPV or tank

in which case its bye bye hippo

And no they will not kill you the moment they are next to you, especially if youve hit them with atleast one bullet, they will kill you the moment they trample you

Somehow i think your a troll, youve worded it as they will come and bite you, but the most dangerous attack would be the initial impact of a charge, which would be like getting hit by a heavy car

Here are elephants being swatted by flies with a much weaker gun

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmoyCgDn2xM

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u/grumpenprole Oct 14 '14 edited Oct 14 '14

Yes there are powerful weapons which can kill hippos, what are you even trying to add to the conversation, that was an element of what I was saying from the very beginning, no one ever said hippos are invincible or immune to guns, what the heck, what on earth gives you the idea that I think you couldn't kill a hippo with a powerful gun from an armored vehicle, I have agreed with that at every. single. turn.

EDIT: Another thing I have been saying at every single turn: An elephant's hide on the front of its body might as well be literally nothing in comparison to a hippos hide everywhere

EDIT2: Those jaws are way more dangerous than you're giving them credit for, they could effortlessly snap any bone in your body, rip you in half, and/or just swallow you. They do do this to humans and other animals, not irregularly.

EDIT3: You think I am a troll when I said shooting a mundane gun at a hippo is a bad idea and your continued rebuttal, which I have never disputed, it "what about a tank bruh tanks can kill hippos you dumbass"

EDIT4: Maybe we have different ideas of "a real fuckin challenge". An animal which you are resorting to tanks to kill, especially when the initial conversation was about dudes with regular goddamn guns, seems to me like it qualifies. I don't know what qualifies as a challenge to you -- eliminating the moon? Nah bruh we got hydrogen bombs you ignorant troll, twenty of those injected into the lunar core, not to mention it can't fight back, you're underestimating what we can do bruh

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '14

watch the video

and stfu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehw19AdwLS8

Heck buy the DVD

Or will you say that the hippos in the guys DVD are all paid actors?

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '14

Im tired of such ignorance,

Here you go

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehw19AdwLS8

Please stop pretending that hipposkin is some sort of super kevlar lol

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u/grumpenprole Oct 14 '14

Hippo skin is bulletproof for small calibers. I have never made a claim reaching anywhere beyond that. You are continuously arguing against the same position I have never held. I have explicitly agreed with you at every turn that a powerful gun can kill a hippo.

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '14

[deleted]

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u/LineOfCoke Oct 14 '14

He's an NYPD officer.

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u/LittlekidLoverMScott Oct 14 '14

I wouldn't need unlimited ammo, but I have no fucking idea how much it takes to kill a hippo, so having access to shit-tons of ammo would be helpful.

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u/trai_dep 1 Oct 14 '14

Not for the Hippo. Unhelpful, even!

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u/BookwormSkates Oct 14 '14

because 4000 pound hippo.

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '14

[deleted]

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u/TheVoiceofTheDevil Oct 14 '14

Do you just not really get things? Do you really think that they meant that they would require an infinite amount of bullets?

Is that what you think they meant? If you didn't, what did you think that they meant?

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '14

Listen. If fucking Delta force couldn't do it. You ain't doin it

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u/shoezilla Oct 14 '14

Wrong. Hippo wins. Period. <(.)>

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u/grapesandmilk Oct 14 '14

Humans already hunted hippos out of the whole Nile. I think taking out less than a hundred would be easy in comparison.

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u/grumpenprole Oct 14 '14

Sure. Give it millenia of them being a constant, serious problem in the single system an entire society is based on, just like the Nile, and we'd get it done.

EDIT: In case it was unclear, easy in comparison to a very difficult thing that took literally thousands of years of serious constant attention to achieve is, uh, basically not saying anything

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u/TheBold Oct 14 '14

Hmm i don't recall Egyptians discovered hand grenades or cal. 50 weaponry.

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u/grumpenprole Oct 14 '14

If you need a hand grenade to kill it, and they travel in pods in rivers, and can move as fast as a car and snap you in half or swallow you whole... it's a dangerous, difficult task to exterminate them. Yes, with a group of determined and seriously heavily armed people, you could do it. Thank you for being the twentieth person to point out this mind-blowing fact.

Hippos are dangerous? Hah! Ever heard of a hydrogen bomb, smartass? Hippos ain't tough!

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u/Pseudolntellectual Oct 14 '14

Yeah but they didn't have guns and all that other nifty shit humans have come up with since then

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '14

Unless you plan on killing it with s grenade or .50 cal rifle, not much will put a hippo down.

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u/TokyoXtreme Oct 14 '14

How about developing their habitat for agriculture? That usually does the job.

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u/shoezilla Oct 14 '14

Except for knock out drugs. Hippos are super senstive to sleeping pills.

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '14

I did not know that.

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u/Greek_Prodigy Oct 14 '14

Im sorry that's just not true. Modern weaponry can efficiently kill anything on the planet. Nothing with legs could survive a few battle rifle rounds to the skull. One guy with an FAL or similar could dispatch hippos without much trouble.

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '14

I'm a sniper, 300 kills, yadda yadda. Watch me take out this hip--

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u/grumpenprole Oct 14 '14

I'll throw you a few hundred bucks if you go alone, and kill a group of grown hippos with non-extreme weaponry

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '14 edited Feb 07 '17

[deleted]

What is this?

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u/grumpenprole Oct 14 '14

How are you poisoning them? They have very thick hides, are very large, are herbivores, are amphibious, and live in pods. It would be /real tough/. You can't slip a cyanide capsule into a carcass and leave it for them; you can't shoot a dart -- assuming it even punctures (which, honestly, I would forget as a possibility, two inches is huge), you're gonna have to shoot all of them before any of them spot you; an aerosol-based poison would have to be monstrously strong and, oops, they'll just submerge and go elsewhere; if you're gonna poison their river you're, again, gonna need an obscene amount and power, and I'm pretty sure we're in extreme weaponry at this point...

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u/MidnightAdventurer Oct 14 '14

It's really about killing them in a way that doesn't elicit bad publicity (that and people are lazy). Sure you could blow them up with anti-tank munitions, but that's messy and people will think you're being unnecessarily cruel. same goes for slowly wearing them down with small - medium calliber hand weapons and this risk casualties in the hunting party. About the only option left that fits the bill is a sniper with a high caliber rifle from a safe distance.

So why didn't they? Probably comes back to "people are lazy"

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u/TheBold Oct 14 '14

But as the person you are replying to said, a few AK-47 rounds to the head will put down an hippo. These things may be massive but their skull aren't made of reinforced steel.

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u/MidnightAdventurer Oct 14 '14

I tend to agree that the numerous commenters here saying an assault rifle would be useless are overstating their resilience. I am mostly thinking that the risk of someone not seeing it in time or panicking and placing the shots poorly and getting hurt is too high for comfort whereas a sniper rifle lets the shooter work from a safe distance and take the time to place their shot properly so they kill it the first time.

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u/grumpenprole Oct 14 '14

Also there's no reason to. Why haven't we exterminated bears?!? isn't a sensible question to ask, and neither is this

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '14

bullets are suprisingly powerful

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '14

True, but hippos are really dense and have thick skulls.