The Last Word On Nothing

Louisiana wetlands, as many places, are the inadvertent home to some ecosystem-altering invasive species, like fast-spreading aquatic plants called water hyacinth and giant salvinia. But hippos, no. There aren’t any hippos down there.

Oh, what might have been.

I’m not sure how I didn’t discover this earlier, considering how much I’ve been writing about invasive species of late—things like zebra mussels and sea lamprey in the Great Lakes and snakes on Guam and cheat grass in the American West, to name a diverse few. But miss it I did, until recently. Now I know that some people, partly in the name of invasive-species control, once considered bringing hippopotamuses from Africa to Louisiana and setting them free.

It was the early 20th century and it was going to be a great thing, because hippos would offer a tasty new resource for a meat-hungry and fast-growing nation and, bonus, they’d help control those pesky aquatic greens that were swallowing up swaths of wetland that normally support young fish, ducks, and a lot of other desirable creatures. A win-win.

There are plenty of this-century cases of our introducing one species to try to hinder another. When biological controls (e.g., natural predators) are applied very carefully in concert with other targeted methods, called “integrated pest management,” it can be an effective way to, say, suppress a non-native insect that’s damaging crops or slow the spread of a noxious weed that’s destroying the native landscape.

And then there are the many times introducing a “control” has gone awry. A couple of favorites: Land managers have released cats and, elsewhere, snakes to control rodents on islands only to have the introduced animals decimate local bird populations. (In the case of snakes, poison-stuffed mice, pre-deceased and attached to parachutes, were later dropped from helicopters to kill the snakes. You can’t make this stuff up.) Similarly, a parasite set free to knock out an invasive amphibian was apparently unskilled at Latin names and decimated a bunch of native species, too. Points for trying? Tell it to the tree frogs.

But this was hippos versus plants, maybe the biggest, baddest plan of all. It arose in the late 1800s, according to a comprehensive and extremely entertaining piece found here, if you have time and want the full absurd story. The ideas men were a pair of big-game hunters, one of whom was the inspiration for Indiana Jones and the Boy Scouts (Frederick Russell Burnham), the other a con man (Fritz Duquesne). The men—bitter enemies-turned-friends (over their shared hippo idea) turned-enemies again—were also both spies. These dudes had some compelling criss-crossing histories and you should definitely read more about them. Elsewhere.

Meanwhile, a politician needed a solution to a serious water hyacinth problem. The ornamental plant, introduced from Japan to New Orleans during the 1884 World’s Fair, was spreading all over the damn place, crowding out native species. Louisiana Congressman Robert Broussard apparently got word of Burnham’s and Duquesne’s grand plan, thought, hey, two birds one stone, and got behind the ship-the-hippos proposition with gusto. The three men joined forces and started the New Food Supply Society to promote the plan.

H.R. 23621, the American Hippo Bill, presented by Broussard in 1910, sought a $250,000 appropriation to import hippos (“useful” animals soon nicknamed “lake cow bacon” in a NYT editorial) into the U.S. from Africa. The animals, which would no doubt lumber happily through the bayous of Florida, Mississippi, and Louisiana, would solve the “Meat Question” (how to nourish the expanding U.S. population at a time of overgrazing and soaring beef prices) with a million tons of tasty fatty brisket and other edible parts, and they’d munch on water hyacinth when they weren’t being shot at by a new breed of U.S. hippo hunters.

It didn’t pass, needless to say. (I’m still trying to imagine hippos squeezing into those coach seats on United.) But it was discussed at length and had quite a bit of citizen support, not to mention some real political momentum for a time. (Just imagine the Tweet storm [a term I never thought I’d use] H.R. 23621 would inspire were it introduced today. Huge hippos [drawing huge crowds?] outside New Orleans? Take that, European leaders!)

Despite their size, hippos actually eat much less than cattle. So even if they’d chosen native flora over the invasive greens, perhaps it wouldn’t have been an ecological disaster in that way. Let’s not forget, though, that hippos also dine on meat now and then. Who knows what naive animals would have become prey and how that might have buggered up the food web long term. Unintended consequences, people.

Notwithstanding how hippos might have reshaped the environment down South, I keep picturing a random misty 1920s Sunday, when a couple of mustached duck hunters come upon a three-ton beast that, despite the roly-poly bod, mouse ears,,and Gerber cheeks, is one of the most dangerous animals on the planet. (Hippos kill anywhere from 500 to “nearly 3,000” people a year, depending on your source.) Most often vegetarian, sure, but way faster on those webbed feet than you’d think and territorial as hell, not afraid to knock the camo pants off a man if a big-mouth yawn isn’t enough to scare him away. (And yes, I AM saying, without apology, that it would be a man stalking a hippo in a U.S. swamp. Then and now. Truth.)

So. Carnivorous appetites plus invasive-species management plus creative (and perhaps not fully thought out) problem solving almost took a very big, very strange turn back in the day. Just thought I’d share. Fake news can’t even compare.