In 1910, Louisiana congressman Robert F. Broussard proposed the "American Hippo Bill" to introduce imported common hippopotamus from Africa to the Lousiana bayou, both to clear out the invasive water hyacinth and as a source of meat (the US being in the midst of an ongoing beef shortage at the time). Despite a broad degree of public support, however, the bill was never passed and the issue eventually died down as beef production increased. What would the ecological and economic consequences of this plan being passed and implemented have been?
WI: American Hippo Bill
- Thread starter Snowstalker
- Start date
Oh boy.....
A lot of dead people for one thing...... hippos are ill-tempered creatures.... "lake cow meat" would come with its costs
Google 'Colombian hippos' for an insight into the effect of introduced hippos.
I suspect the good folk of Louisiana might regret Broussard's decision.
I suspect the good folk of Louisiana might regret Broussard's decision.
I think there's this book series that has this idea. But yeah not good Hippos are notoriously very aggressive.
<checks 20 year rule>
Just in time for an ACTU protest to go funny at Parliament House. One ill fated mixture of VB hippos and lake burley griffin and you’ve got an excellent myth suitable for Australia.
While a neat idea, I don’t know how likely it is that the hippos survive in the long run. More likely than not their aggressive nature and ecologically damaging tendencies means the whole population would be culled sometime before 1980. They’re just not a super practical farm animal. The only way I imagine this working is if the US population developed a love for hippo meat and was willing to pay extra for it.
Could Domesticated Water Buffalos be chosen instead? I don’t know how well suited they’d be to the Bayou, but they’re significantly more tame then Hippos, and already have a proven track record as meat and dairy livestock.
Could Domesticated Water Buffalos be chosen instead? I don’t know how well suited they’d be to the Bayou, but they’re significantly more tame then Hippos, and already have a proven track record as meat and dairy livestock.
Given the American love of pizza, and the fact that the best mozzarella is buffalo mozzarella
I'd say the water buffalo would be worth a try....Casting Crown
Banned
The European ones require a cooler climate than Louisiana, it would have to come from Africa I would think.
What about the Carabao? This is the local Philippine breed of Water Buffalo, adapted for hotter climates. Perhaps the are imported back to the USA by American officials partly as a scheme to promote the value of America's new overseas empire. There exists today a few niche herds of Water Buffalo in the US, perhaps it might be a little more common if it were introduced earlier.
Yep. Mind you, hippos being the size they are, it wouldn’t be as hard as rabbits or snakes to get rid of them.
Have someone come up with the identity of pleistocene rewilding a few generations early to have even more reasons for releasing them.