Fun Fact: Americans Almost Ate Hippos!

Who Wants Hippo-burgers?

If you're from the United State of America, I'm going to say it's safe to assume you eat cow meat. Unless you're a vegetarian, which is completely fine, and I'd love to hear you're opinion on this too. So how many pounds of meat do you think you ate per year? You could be eating that in hippopotamus meat! The idea was brought up by Theodore Roosevelt and supported by the New York Times. Let's look into this crazy situation.

What's a Hippo?

Most zoos have hippos, so those that have seen them know how huge they are. The name hippopotamus is from ancient greek and literally means "River Horse." I think we can all agree their name is fairly accurate based on their massive size. While they are mainly herbivorous mammals, they actually kill more humans per year than the shark, bear, and lion combined. So basically, stick to watching them from afar or at the zoo. They are also very aggressive animals and the mature bulls tend to get into fights often because they are territorial and ill-tempered. Naturally the females are also mirror this personality but most due to their protective instincts of their calves.

Hippos are the closest relative today to the whale. Not important, just thought I'd mention another fun fact. The hippo is a semiaquatic mammal, inhabiting rivers, swamps, and lakes. The cool thing is, while they spend most of the time in the water, they graze on land. On land they are not as territorial. Bulls usually claim a stretch of river, and they travel in packs ranging from about 5-30 with females and calves. In the rivers, lakes, or swamps the hippos will stay together as a pack but on land grazing is more of an isolated event.

The Hippo Diet

So who came up with this ingenious idea to harvest hippo meat in America? Well in the beginning of the last century, there was a meat shortage in America. Well naturally what do you do when you have a meat shortage? Bring in a bunch of hippopotamuses. They began ranching hippos that were imported from Africa to the swampy bayous of Louisiana. This actually planned to solve two problems for the United States. One problem was obviously the short supply of meat in a very carnivorous country. However the second problem, to the benefit of the hippos not on the dinner table, was they got to eat up water hyacinth, a type of flowering plant. The hyacinth was actually blocking waterways and killing fish, so for team America it was a win-win.

Why Aren't We Eating Hippos?

Clearly this plan fell through or else we would be able to treat ourselves to a bit of hippo meat every once and a while. I myself have never had it, but I have read that it is delicious so I guess that can be put on my bucket list. Anyway, we are not eating hippos mainly because of industrial agriculture. Now I wont get into details there but essentially instead of gathering animals that thrive in local environments and ship the meat and products of said animals to local markets, we just cleared land and raised more of the same animal. How awesome would that have been to have hippos in the south, ostrich farms in the north, and antelope ranches across the U.S.? The most intriguing part here is that Congress was willing to listen to, "What about eating hippos?" They were desperate enough to think this plan through and almost put it into action. So why wont Congress listen to the idea of a Death Star?!

Hippo meat was almost on our plate. I guess desperate times call for desperate ideas.

That's your daily brain gain!