Hippos Can't Swim or Float, Yet They Run Africa's Rivers

💰 Support the channel: USDT TRC20: TBebXWjFeAJHfArVsJvt8N6Yv5rvn4GXP7 In 1910, a congressman from Louisiana asked the United States government to import hippos and release them into the bayous. They would eat the invasive water hyacinth, and Americans would eat the hippos. The bill had the support of a former president and the New York Times, which called the meat lake cow bacon. Congress never acted. Seventy years later, four hippos smuggled into Colombia by Pablo Escobar showed what Louisiana had been spared. This film follows one hippo through one day in three shifts. The day shift in the water: an animal related to whales that cannot swim or float, walks on the riverbed, sweats a red sunscreen and opens its jaws to 150 degrees. The night shift on land: trails, hippo lawns, channels cut through the Okavango, and trotting hippos that briefly leave the ground. And the delivery: more than 9 tons of grass a day moved into Kenya's Mara River, food for the river until a flood flushes the pools and the fish suffocate. Along the way: George Washington's dentures, America's trade in hippo teeth, William the blue hippo of the Met, the hippos once buried under Trafalgar Square, the collapse and recovery of Lake Edward's hippos, Moo Deng, and the long fight over Colombia's hippos, from the killing of Pepe to the cull announced in 2026. 👍 Subscribe for a new wildlife documentary every week. #hippo #hippopotamus #hippos #wildlife #wildlifedocumentary #animalfacts #naturedocumentary #africa #louisiana #escobarhippos #colombia #rivers #ecology #animalbehavior #natureeducation