View from the North 40: The judge said hippo-what-amus?

Ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm round of applause as we officially welcome into the human species, and perhaps an election near you, the 80-some hippopotamuses affectionately known as the “cocaine hippos,” and if you are confused, just wait until the end, where I make none of this clear.

For those who haven’t heard or read in the news about these hippos and their legal case, the recap of the situation is that in the 1980s four hippos were illegally imported to Colombia by Pablo Escobar. Yes, that Pablo Escobar, the King of Cocaine who set the gold standard for drug cartels in the ’80s by building what in today’s dollars would be a $64 billion cocaine trafficking industry that very much included the United States.

After Escobar died not-peacefully in 1993, his property was seized by the Colombian authorities who, presumably, felt they had more pressing matters to worry about than five tons worth of hippos.

They thrived — thrived beyond all expectations.

With their numbers now upwards of 80, the people of the area who live in fear of the hippos, which can be aggressive and surprisingly fast and stealthy; the local ag producers, whose livelihood has been eaten or destroyed, and the government officials have had enough. They are working to curb this invasive species.

But the hippos have supporters. Entrepreneurs have capitalized on guided hippo-viewing tours and a handful of environmentalist say the hippos are good for the natural ecosystem because they reintroduce a type of omnivore that has been extinct from the area for 12,000 to 116,000 years.

Presumably, these people have not watched any movies from the “Jurassic Park” franchise, which advise a solid “No” on reintroduction of extinct species.

Anyhow, animal rights lawyers in Colombia have been working to save the hippos from elimination, especially after attempts to castrate the males in the hippo population proved to cost about $5,000 each. Folks from the Animal Legal Defense Fund in the U.S. got involved in the fight recommending that the hippos be allowed to live their 40- to 50-year life span in peace by curbing populations growth with hippo contraceptives.

However, and I don’t quite understand this part, the hippos had to be officially recognized as people in order for ALDF to bring in their witnesses. Oct. 15, a federal judge finally waved his magic gavel and declared the hippos real people.

And just like that, the U.S. has what many are touting as the first non-humans to be legally declared people in the U.S.

On that very same day, the Colombian government issued a statement that said, “Whatever. We gave up on the idea of killing the hippos a while back and have been administering the contraceptive GonaCon to the herd.” To which ALDF replied, “Oh, um. Well we recommended the contraceptive PZP, so we’re still going to keep an eye on you.”

How the hippos can be both legally people and forced to take contraceptives must be an issue for another day in court.

For now, all’s well that ends well for the cocaine hippos, but now that we officially have Hippo sapiens — or is it Homo amphibiens — I think the real thing to watch out for in our current political and cultural environment is what’s going to happen in the U.S.

I see outrage from the folks who are troubled by “otherness.” If they think little Jimmy from next door growing up to wear dresses is an affront, just wait until the new neighbors start moving in with their four legs and gray skin. The first time neighborhood greenery goes missing, you know who’s going to get blamed.

Next thing you know, these hippos are going to want equal pay, their own bathrooms and the right to vote. That right there is going to lead to their own political party. Taking a cue from the RINO Republican in Name Only folks, they’ll call themselves HIPPOs — Human if Politically Practical Only.

They’ll start by taking over American politics beginning with the local town council. Then one day one of them will run for the highest office in the land, bite a reporter on Election Day eve and still get voted into office. The first thing it’ll do is sign an executive order declaring all waterways and swimming pools the sovereign nation of their hippopotami brethren.

Seriously, though, I’ll bet a fiver that says some animal rights organization is going to be using this animals-are-humans defense in the near future. This column is constrained by its written-word format so you’re all going to have to perform your own physical comedy by turning your head and coughing “PETA” into the crook of your elbow.

One day we’ll be watching a reality TV series featuring the naturalization ceremony of the first porcine American.

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Thanks to the cocaine hippos, we are just a stone’s throw away from giving our all-but human corporations the right to vote for the candidates they paid for at http://www.facebook.viewfromthenorth40 .