Easily solved problem

So hippos like Columbia rivers? I suppose it makes sense, and the story suggests that they are breeding and spreading rapidly.

There is an oddity or so in the story:

The respected El Colombiano newspaper recently reported that children in a school near Hacienda Napoles are sharing a pond with the animals, and having direct contact with hippo calves at home.

"My father brought a little one home once," an unnamed girl told the paper. "I called him Luna (Moon) because he was very sweet - we fed him with just milk." Another child, a boy, told the paper: "My father has captured three. It is nice because you have a little animal at home. We bottle-feed them because they only drink milk. They have a very slippery skin, you pour water and they produce a kind of slime, you touch them and it's like soap."

Elsewhere I read that mother hippos protect their calves; which is sort of what you expect. So maybe the newspaper was exaggerating just a little. And that "little animal at home" gets a bit awkward pretty quickly...

Though Valderrama asserts that the ideal solution is to relocate the hippos, the obvious solution is (for some bizarre reason) labeled as "radical:" "barbeque them." Once the hippos have done enough damage, or killed a person or two, the local folks will take the hint and, no matter what the distant elites may command, supplement their diet. (That may be the subtext of the story of the three pet hippo calves.) Hippos taste like pork.