Noah’s Ark crashed into American agriculture—almost. In what ranks among the wildest plans ever hatched by the federal government, hippos were once on the cusp of introduction to U.S. rivers, lakes, and farmland. Simply, hippopotamus farming almost became a reality.
In 1910, fighting an invasive species plague and meat crisis, a congressman and a USDA official teamed up with a solution for the ages: Import hippos from Africa, along with a menagerie of other large mammals, and loose the beasts across the country.
The hippos would eat the invasives, the masses would eat the hippos, the backwoods of America would turn into a zoo, and the Beef Trust would take a crunching kick to the sack when at least 1 million pounds of hippo steak per year hit the market.
All that was needed was $250,000 in funding and a vote of confirmation for House Resolution 23261, the American Hippo Bill. Backed by Theodore Roosevelt, multiple politicians, USDA, and big media, what could go wrong with releasing herds of Africa’s big game from Mississippi to Montana?
Welcome to a Faustian deal in the madhouse of agriculture history.
The Devil You Know
Blame it on the Japanese and their gift that kept on giving.
Sandwiched between the introduction of kudzu in 1876 and the notorious invasive arrival of fire ants in 1918, the 1884 World’s Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition in New Orleans featured a door prize from hell. A delegation from Japan handed out booth samples of a peculiarly prolific freshwater, free-floating plant from the Amazon—water hyacinth. Eager recipients rushed home with the botanical version of a gremlin and tossed the plants into backyard gardens or ponds.
The result was a near-otherworldly explosion in growth from an alien-like organism that had no natural enemies, reproduced asexually, could double in coverage area every 30 days, and shed seeds that remained viable for over a decade. By the early 1890s, hundreds of thousands of acres in the Southeast’s water world, from Florida to Louisiana and Mississippi, were covered in green floating mats topped by spikes of purple flowers. Despite their beauty, the giant rafts of water hyacinth spanned rivers from bank to bank, grew 100’ wide in unbroken chains several miles long, blocked river traffic, and wrecked the fishing industry.
The clogs of water hyacinth reached phenomenal mass, at roughly 30-50 tons per acre. Initially viewed as a godsend by many in the livestock industry, producers carted away piles of free fodder, but soon realized the feed source was detrimental to cattle health—particularly as cows began dying after consuming chemical-tainted hyacinth when the Army Corp of Engineers began spraying as a control measure. (For more, see Engineers vs Florida’s Green Menace.)
The Corps deployed machinery scoopers, grabbers, choppers, shredders, rake-wielding manpower, sprays, and oil burns—all to no long-term avail. In 1899, Congress threw $75,000 at the hyacinth menace and began searching for an answer. (The botanical battle still rages. Louisiana, for example, currently spends $2 million per year fighting hyacinth.)
With no herbicide or mechanical solution at hand, the water hyacinth debacle triggered the exchange of floral invasive for a mammalian invasive, i.e., hyacinth for hippo.
Beware: Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.
Boiled Dog
In 1910, the Philadelphia Athletics won the World Series in five, the Tommy Gun was invented, Mark Twain kicked the bucket at 74, 300-plus lb. President William Taft roamed the White House—and America was knee-deep in a meat shortage attributed to overgrazing, herd diminishment, meat monopolies, logistic snags, and population pressure.
Up 21% from 76 million in 1900, the 1910 census tallied a U.S. population of 92 million pining for city life and departing the farm as never before. (Only a decade later, the 1920 census marked the first time in which most Americans lived in urban locations.)
Emblematic of city clamor and looming meat issues, horse flesh at 15 cents per pound (three times less than beef or pork) became a consideration for some, writes Zachary Crockett at Priceonomics: The mindset toward horse consumption began to shift — partly in thanks to a changing culinary landscape. Between 1900 and 1910, the number of food and dairy cattle in the US decreased by nearly 10% ... With the introduction of the 1908 Model-T and the widespread use of the automobile, horses also began to lose their luster a bit as man’s faithful companions; this eased apprehension about putting them on the table with a side of potatoes.
“No longer will the worn-out horse find his way to the boneyard,” declared Ernst Lederle, New York City Health Commissioner. “Instead, he will be fattened up in order to give the thrifty another source of food supply.”
In Chicago, Health Commissioner W. A. Evans moved from equine to canine, championing dog meat in 1910. “To the man who sees nothing disgusting in eating canine flesh, it should prove just as good eating as other forms of meat.”
Aye caramba. Hippo steaks over boiled dog, anyone? Anyone?
Lake Cow Bacon
In January 1909, William Irwin, a fruit researcher at USDA, took the podium at the American Breeder’s Association in Columbia, Mo., and rattled cages with the delivery of an industry-shattering paper: “Animals That Should Be Introduced And Bred For Economic And Profitable Meat Production.”
Irwin advocated for the immediate importation of African mammals to the U.S., starting with hippos in the Southeast to raise 1 million pounds of meat—lake cow bacon—at a yearly value of $100 million. Irwin also recommended the Southeast as a farm home for African buffalo, bushbuck, and reedbuck.
Further, Irwin insisted rhinos and giraffes would have “abundant room” in a South-to-West belt. For the Midwest and North, he suggested multiple antelope species, including the red duiker, blue duiker, and dik-dik.
In all, Irwin tagged 100 African mammals as ideal transfers to America: “Because these animals have not been introduced is not a sound reason why they should not be. Seriously, we need every additional species whose flesh is both palatable and nutritious we can find a place somewhere in our great country that will be adapted to the successful propagation of each. Our people will never accept kindly the conditions that according to press reports exist now in Germany, where during 19078 there were slaughtered and the meat sold for food 38,000 horses and 14,000 dogs.”
Neck-deep in water hyacinth, 750 miles south of Columbia, in New Iberia, La., Congressman Robert Broussard heard Irwin’s clarion call: new meat for the masses. Son of a Cajun farmer and showman to the core known as “Cousin Bob” to his constituents, Broussard began cooking up a bill to bring Irwin’s zoo to America.
Cousin Bob’s solution to the meat crisis and water hyacinth constipation? Pods of hippos—lake cow bacon.
Four-legged Danger
Who could Cousin Bob find to gin up support for delivery of thousands of beasts from sub-Saharan Africa to Mississippi or Montana or Minnesota, along with a chain of packing plants beyond the Beef Trust’s reach? How ‘bout a trio of wild boys pulled straight from central casting.
Rugged Theodore Roosevelt, never one to run low on ammo during safaris and never shy to wade into controversy; Frederick Russell Burnham, 5’4”, but with a lengthy shadow as military scout, legendary hunter, veteran of countless wars, and partial inspiration 70 years later for Indiana Jones; and Fritz Duquesne, native of South Africa, classic outdoorsman, soldier, scoundrel, and arch enemy of Burnham.
On March 24, 1910, bolstered by the combined wildlife knowledge and experience of Burnham and Duquesne, and the scientific gravitas of USDA’s Irwin, Cousin Bob requested $250,000 (just under $10 million in modern currency) for the import of “wild and domestic animals into the United States,” and offered the U.S. government a meat proposal for the ages: House Resolution 23261—the American Hippo Bill.
The House Agriculture Committee, chaired by Rep. Charles Scott, who grew up on a family farm in Allen County, Kansas, sat in rapt attention at 10:30 a.m. Cousin Bob marched in Irwin, Burnham, and Duquesne to tell Congress an animal capable of reaching 5,000 lb. and running in short bursts at speeds of 20 mph was an ideal fit for domestication on and around U.S. farms.
Despite the trio’s insistence on the docile nature of hippos, they were recommending the import of the most dangerous four-legged creature on the planet: Hippos kill 500-3,000 people per year.
American Rhino
Irwin spoke first: “There is not any reason why we cannot raise meat for every person, if we will get at it and get the right animals here.”
His presentation was riveting—and surreal.
Farm by farm, Irwin recommended fencing off sections of land beside waterways, inserting hippos, and pulling in water hyacinth for free fodder. (No matter that hippos generally graze on land and would not have consumed water hyacinth in significant quantity.)
“My idea is that in the South we have the greatest undeveloped resources in the water courses there and in the lakes and ponds there, where I think it is easily possible to add 1 million tons of meat a year to our supply if we will get the right animals.”
“The feed (water hyacinth) is there now, going to waste. It is alarming the people in that country. It is giving them great inconvenience through stopping up their waterways, their navigable streams, and I believe there is a gold mine there if we will adopt the right measures to utilize the value of it.”
Irwin suggested hippos for the South, and a litany of animals for the West, although he conceded rhino domestication might prove tricky. “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 ... I don’t not think there is any question about the certainty of our domesticating any of these great animals. Probably the rhinoceros would be the most difficult of all.”
Charles Scott, chairman of the Agriculture Committee, asked Irwin about potential dangers of hippo domestication. Without skipping a beat, Irwin, the USDA expert, offered assurance: “The people who have handled them tell me they are very easily tamed and become very much attached to man.”
Rep. Joseph Howell of Utah, reflecting on meat potential for his home state, asked Irwin if any animals would be a fit for the Great Salt Lake. Irwin’s answer took the presentation to heights beyond hippos and rhinos: “I suppose the manatee might live there if it is not too cold for it.”
Whether dumbfounded, bewildered, or intrigued by Irwin’s manatee advice, Howell’s response is lost to history.
Skill and Brains
Next up at the plate was swashbuckling Fritz Duquesne, who echoed Irwin regarding hippo safety issues: “It is absolutely not dangerous.”
Duquesne assured the committee on the delightful flavor of hippo flesh, and advocated for agriculture industry income based on hippo skin, ivory, and fat production.
Beyond hippos, Duquesne cited giraffes, elephants, cape buffalo, springbok, camels, and wart hogs as creatures that could be “easily introduced into this country.”
Francis Burnham, grizzled adventurer and living legend, spoke last, anchoring the testimonials.
“We must not make the mistake of taking one pair of animals and expecting that they will population the whole territory. But with reasonable care and skill and brains, and with the Department of Agriculture having charge of the matter, I do not see any reason why we cannot have great success,” explained Burnham, who was in the process of putting his beliefs into action by transplanting wild pigs and whitetails from Mexico onto his ranch in eastern California.
Burnham’s rationale was grounded in success. At different points in history, European animals had thrived in North America: pig, cow, goat, and horse. And in Burnham’s lifetime, successes and failures ranged from reindeer importation from Siberia to Alaska in 1891; camels from multiple Mediterranean ports to several Western states in 1856; and ring-necked pheasants from China to Oregon in 1881.
However, big game from Africa was a wildly different bone to chew.
Just Plain Critters
The Agriculture Committee didn’t bite on The American Hippo Bill.
Broussard reshuffled the deck and prepared to resubmit the bill the next year. Burnham would go to Africa to nail down logisitcs and Duquesne would go to Louisiana to eyeball the sloughs and swamps. However, the American hippo movement had slipped its moment. (For more, see Jon Mooallem’s superb account, American Hippopotamus.)
Irwin, USDA’s true believer, held out hope, telling The Washington Post: “I hope to live long enough to see herds of these broad-backed beasts wallowing in the Southern marshes and rivers, fattening on the millions of tons of food which awaits their arrival; to see great droves of white rhinoceri … roaming over the semiarid desert wastes, fattening on the sparse herbage which these lands offer; to see herds of the delicate giraffe, the flesh of which is the purest and sweetest of any known animal, browsing on the buds and shoots of young trees in preparation for the butchers block.”
Dreams of a perpetual American safari faded with a whimper. Irwin died in 1911; Cousin Bob won a Senate seat and died in 1918; Burnham continued adventuring, building his legend until heart failure in 1946; and Fritz Duquesne careened through incessant escapades, finding infamy after arrest in 1942 as a Nazi agent in the biggest spy ring bust in U.S. history (Duquesne Spy Ring, 33 arrests). Duquesne was released from a federal penitentiary in 1954 due to poor health; he died in 1956 at 78.
Ironically, the largest present population of hippos in proximity to the U.S. Gulf States is in South America. At the height of Pablo Escobar’s drug empire, he imported three females and one male to his private zoo in Colombia. After Escobar’s death, the “Cocaine Hippos” escaped and proliferated. Currently, roughly 170 hippos live in the rivers around Escobar’s former estate, Hacienda Napoles.
In the end, the American Hippo movement withered before it could provide meat for the masses. There are no herds of rhinos in New Mexico or Arizona. There are no pods of manatees in Utah. And there are no rice and soybean farmers in Louisiana or Mississippi raising hippos on the back-40 bayou.
However, there remains a curious appeal in the madcap movement to give Mother Nature a bit of hippo help. As summed by Cousin Bob to the New York Daily Tribune: “We need more critters in this country. Just plain critters.”
For more articles from Chris Bennett (cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:
American Pie Reborn: How An Iowa Farmer Saved Buddy Holly
Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told
American Gothic: Farm Couple Nailed In Massive $9M Crop Insurance Fraud
Priceless Pistol Found After Decades Lost in Farmhouse Attic
Cottonmouth Farmer: The Insane Tale of a Buck-Wild Scheme to Corner the Snake Venom Market
Power vs. Privacy: Landowner Sues Game Wardens, Challenges Property Intrusion
Tractorcade: How an Epic Convoy and Legendary Farmer Army Shook Washington, D.C.
