How the U.S. Almost Became a Nation of “Hippo Ranchers”

In 1910, a failed House Bill sought to increase the availability of low-cost meat by importing hippopotamuses that would be killed to make “lake cow bacon”. Representative Robert F. Broussard believed hippos imported from Africa would rid Louisiana and Florida of the water hyacinths smothering their waterways. 

In 1884, the water hyacinth delighted audiences when it made its North American debut at the Cotton States Exposition in New Orleans. With its delicate purple flowers and glossy leaves, the Amazonian plant was poised to become the new frontier of ornamental gardening, the fair’s organizers proclaimed, handing out hyacinths to anyone who wanted them.

But beneath its pretty exterior, the hyacinth hid its true nature as a malevolent marauder. The plant spread like a virus first in Louisiana and then in Florida. Within 20 years, it had overtaken waterways across the South, threatening long-established trade routes. Workers hoping to halt the hyacinth’s growth broke the plants apart and dredged them from the river banks; they soaked the blooms in gasoline and set them on fire. Each time, the hyacinth not only survived but also thrived.

As Southerners waged a never-ending botanical battle, a second crisis brewed in the United States. Around the turn of the 20th century, inexpensive meat, a product of American prosperity that had long been available to even the poorest immigrants, was suddenly in short supply. “Meatpackers blamed the grain prices and cattle shortages, butchers blamed the meatpackers, [and most everyone else] blamed the Beef Trust” - a nickname for the nation’s largest meatpacking companies - “for conspiring to profit at their expense,” says Catherine McNeur, a historian at Portland State University.

The only one way to solve both problems at once, argued Louisiana Representative Robert F. Broussard, was to embrace hippopotamus ranching. On March 24, 1910, Broussard stood before the House Committee on Agriculture to lay out the details of his “American Hippo Bill” (House Resolution 23261). He believed importing the hungry herbivores from Africa would rid Louisiana and Florida of the hyacinths smothering their waterways. When the animals were good and fat (on average, hippos weigh between 3,000 and 9,920 pounds), farmers could take their inventory to slaughter, revitalizing America’s low-cost meat supply.

But hippo meat, or “lake cow bacon,” as the New York Times called it, would be just the start. “I think it is easily possible to add 1,000,000 tons of meat a year to our supply,” William Newton Irwin, a researcher at the Department of Agriculture, told the congressional panel. “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.”

If the Hippo Bill were passed, no American, whatever their socioeconomic status, would ever have to eat a meatless meal again. For just $250,000 (about $8 million today), America’s “unoccupied and unused” government lands could be filled with wild and domestic animals from around the globe, the bill stated.

Former President Theodore Roosevelt, who spent his post-White House days enthralling the country with photos of his African hunting safaris, immediately signed on to the plan. He pledged to give Broussard his full support on the matter. But it remained to be seen whether the American public would do the same.

A few weeks later, reporter William Henderson made the case for hippo meat in the North Dakota Evening Times: “Great Britain has eaten the Australian kangaroo and likes him, horseflesh is a staple in continental Europe, and the people of Central America eat the lizard. Why cannot Americans absorb the hippopotamus?”

Committee members had their own questions about Broussard’s proposal. Chairman Charles F. Scott asked whether it would be possible to domesticate and contain the portly mammals. Would they eat the invasive water hyacinths, he wondered?

Irwin and Broussard answered both queries with an emphatic yes. Yes, hippos would be easily tamed. Yes, they would be fenced in, living safely on five- or six-acre waterfront farms. Yes, hippos would relish dining on water hyacinths. The plant, which grew to a mass of 30 to 50 tons per acre, according to Irwin, could easily be their primary food source.

The pair had no idea how misguided these theories were. Tank-like hippos would be difficult to keep from busting through fences on family farms. As one of the deadliest animals in the world, killing an estimated 500 people per year, hippos would pose an extreme threat if they escaped. What’s more, aquatic plants are a very small component of the hippo diet; at night, the animals lumber out of the water to graze on grasses. Even if water hyacinths were hippo culinary staples, they would be a poor choice of food.

Hippos may not spend much time eating while in the water, but they do poop prolifically—an activity that creates an ecological threat as weighty as the one Broussard was trying to solve in the first place. Hippo waste adds to water’s nutritional load, propelling the overgrowth of algae while simultaneously killing native plants and fish.

Despite the excitement generated by the American Hippo Bill, with newspapers from Maine to Oregon breathlessly weighing in on the issue, the committee remained unconvinced, and members shelved the legislation. Broussard discussed reintroducing the bill to the committee the following year, but it wasn’t long before political ambitions and the outbreak of World War I drew his attention elsewhere.

Though Broussard was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1914, he didn’t live to complete his term, dying in 1918 after a long illness. By then, war-hardened Americans had gotten used to living without luxuries like meat, butter and coffee. With time and new technologies that allowed for more meat production with fewer resources, the scheme to populate the U.S. with dozens of non-native animal species was forgotten. The nation had lost its taste for hippopotamus.

More than a century later, water hyacinths still menace Southern waters. Between 1975 and 2013, Louisiana spent $124 million on efforts to keep the invasive plant at bay. “It’s not becoming more tame with time,” says  Jason A. Ferrell, Director of the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Center for Aquatic and Invasive Plants. "While strategies ranging from biological control agents to herbicides are slowing the plant’s growth, they aren’t enough to stop its spread entirely. That clock will never be reset."

If only things had been a little different - if the House committee had forwarded the bill to Congress, if Broussard hadn’t run for the Senate, if World War I had begun several years later - the American ecosystem, from the Rhinoceros plateaus of New Mexico to the Manchurian pig farms of Minnesota, might look profoundly different than it does today. And in the South, herds of hippos would soak like submarines in the bucolic waters of their riverside ranches.

EDITOR’S TAKE:

I apologize for this article was a little longer than usual, but it just captured my attention as I hope it captures yours! Plus, it clearly demonstrates how convoluted things can become when humans interfere with the natural order of things. Can you imagine what a fiasco the importation of hippos and other species would have been? As Jason Ferrell points out, "the hippos really aren’t that fond of hyacinth. Hyacinths are 95% water and the hippos would actually lose weight by eating them." Then there’s the threat to humans and the environment. There could have been some bizarre logic to this proposal but, in today’s world, the logic escapes us. Besides, trying to round up huge hippos and haul them to a slaughter facility might be more of a challenge than our farmers/ranchers really want to take on. Hippo meat – no thank you! I’ll stick to good ole U.S. fed and grown livestock meat products….