a true story, regrettably
The Hippo Solution
In 1910, the United States Congress came genuinely close to voting to release hippopotamuses into the swamps of Louisiana. On purpose. The plan was to let them fatten up, and then eat them. This is that story, plus every gloriously unhinged thing orbiting it.
It was called the American Hippo Bill, and on paper it solved two problems at once. America had a meat shortage and rising beef prices. Louisiana had an invasive weed strangling its waterways. The pitch: import hippos, let them eat the weed, then turn the hippos into dinner. Two birds, one enormous semi-aquatic mammal.
Serious people backed it. The New York Times coined a name for the meat. The bill went to a committee hearing. And then, mercifully for everyone who has ever met a hippo, it quietly died.
The Bill
A Louisiana congressman, a war hero, and a man who would later run a Nazi spy ring walk into a hearing room. They are all here to talk about hippos.
Read on →Hippo Facts
Their closest relatives are whales, they sweat what looks like blood, and they cannot actually swim. The animal we wanted to ranch is a deeply strange one.
Read on →Louisiana
An official state meat pie. Drive-through daiquiris. A boot that is slowly sinking into the Gulf. The state chosen for this experiment had range.
Read on →Lake Cow Bacon
What does hippo taste like, and how would you cook one and a half tons of it? The newspapers had a name for the meat before anyone had tasted it.
Read on →The Weed
A pretty purple flower from the Amazon that doubles in a week, chokes rivers dead, and is the reason hippos were on the table at all.
Read on →What If
Suppose it had passed. Suppose the bayou filled with hippos. We do not have to imagine very hard, because Colombia is living it right now.
Read on →Cautionary Tales
Cane toads. Mongooses. Sixty starlings in Central Park. A short history of solving one problem by importing a much larger one.
Read on →