How the U.S. Almost Became a Nation of Hippo Ranchers

[jayboogieman]

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In 1910, a failed House bill sought to increase the availability of low-cost meat by importing hippopotamuses that would be killed to make “lake cow bacon”

In 1884, the water hyacinth delighted audiences when it made its North American debut at the Cotton States Exposition in New Orleans. With its delicate purple flowers and glossy leaves, the Amazonian plant was poised to become the new frontier of ornamental gardening, the fair’s organizers proclaimed, handing out hyacinths to anyone who wanted them.

But beneath its pretty exterior, the hyacinth hid its true nature as a malevolent marauder. The plant spread like a virus first in Louisiana and then in Florida. Within 20 years, it had overtaken waterways across the South, threatening long-established trade routes. Workers hoping to halt the hyacinth’s growth broke the plants apart and dredged them from the river banks; they soaked the blooms in gasoline and set them on fire. Each time, the hyacinth not only survived but also thrived.

As Southerners waged a never-ending botanical battle, a second crisis brewed in the United States. Around the turn of the 20th century, inexpensive meat, a product of American prosperity that had long been available to even the poorest immigrants, was suddenly in short supply. “Meatpackers blamed the grain prices and cattle shortages, butchers blamed the meatpackers, [and most everyone else] blamed the Beef Trust”—a nickname for the nation’s largest meatpacking companies—“for conspiring to profit at their expense,” says Catherine McNeur, a historian at Portland State University.

 

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But hippo meat, or “lake cow bacon,” as the New York Times called it, would be just the start. “I think it is easily possible to add 1,000,000 tons of meat a year to our supply,” William Newton Irwin, a researcher at the Department of Agriculture, told the congressional panel. “There is not any reason why we cannot find a place in the United States for every one of the more than 100 species of animals that are in existence today and not domesticated.”

Dik-diks and other small antelopes from sub-Saharan Africa could become a mainstay on family farms, while herds of Cape buffalo and bushbucks could roam like cattle across Western ranches. Rhinoceroses could populate the barren deserts of the Southwest, Tibetan yaks could climb the peaks of the Rocky Mountains, and Manchurian pigs could reside in the frigid northern states.

Much more at the source

[toldozer]

How many people would have died trying to capture hippos and bring them here and breed them.  Those mother fugers are mean

[rayzor]

I took enough of a beating working in a chicken house.

Had to med with cranky cows a few times too. don't want to do that again. Btw, don't ever punch one in the side of the head. Just don't.

[LinvilleGorge]

I grew up on a cattle farm. I was always a fearsome son of a bitch in sports and on the schoolyard because I was getting my ass kicked by 800+ pound steers at home on a daily basis. There really wasn't anything a fellow kid could threaten me with that put any fear in me.

But yeah... hippos? Oh wee mayne. That's another ballgame altogether. Those damn things kill more people than pretty much every other non-mosquito animal on the planet. fug that.

Maybe we should've just ya know not slaughtered the bison nearly to extinction?

 

 

[jayboogieman]

9 hours ago, toldozer said:

How many people would have died trying to capture hippos and bring them here and breed them.  Those mother fugers are mean

Yep and a lot more would have died trying to domesticate them. Then there is the whole killing of native plants and fish because of all the hippo poo in the rivers. The whole idea was dumb.

[jayboogieman]

7 hours ago, rayzor said:

Btw, don't ever punch one in the side of the head. Just don't.

Sounds like this is a story you should share.

[jayboogieman]

7 hours ago, LinvilleGorge said:

But yeah... hippos? Oh wee mayne. That's another ballgame altogether. Those damn things kill more people than pretty much every other non-mosquito animal on the planet. fug that.

Maybe we should've just ya know not slaughtered the bison nearly to extinction?

But people wanted cheap meat and the government was thinking way out of the box to provide it for them. What's a few hundred deaths in the face of profiting off of tons of cheap meat every year? Joking aside, it shows that even back then that people in congress didn't know what they were talking about.

What's even worse about the bison is that they weren't hunted for the meat, but simply for sport and their hides.

[Lame Duck]

Pablo did it… now, Columbia is paying the price

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/30/removing-pablo-escobars-hippos-to-cost-colombia-35m

[jayboogieman]

1 hour ago, Lame Duck said:

Pablo did it… now, Columbia is paying the price

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/30/removing-pablo-escobars-hippos-to-cost-colombia-35m

Those were four "pets" that got free, one way or the other, and have since taken over the river and bred like crazy. It would have been much worse here since they would have brought over hundreds of hippos.