A congressman's idea to raise hippos for cheap meat once caused a stir across the US, but it was eventually shelved and forgotten.
Around the turn of the 20th century, America was experiencing a shortage of cheap meat. “Wholesale meat merchants blamed grain prices and livestock shortages. Stores blamed big business,” says Catherine McNeur, a historian at Portland State University.
Louisiana Congressman Robert F. Broussard believed the solution was to encourage farmers to raise hippos. On March 24, 1910, Broussard appeared before the House Agriculture Committee to present the details of his Hippo Bill.
He believes that importing hippos from Africa for farming would help eliminate the water hyacinths that are flooding the waterways of Louisiana and Florida. Once the hippos reach a sufficient weight, farmers could send them to slaughterhouses, restoring the country’s supply of cheap meat.
“I think it could easily add a million tons of meat a year to the supply,” William Newton Irwin, a researcher at the US Department of Agriculture, told the committee at the time.
A hippo wades in the water at Saadani National Park in Tanzania. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Irwin was one of three experts Broussard brought to the hearing to provide expert testimony. Atavist magazine wrote in 2013 that Irwin "seems to have spent his career advocating ideas that are both plausible and utterly bizarre." Irwin described hippo meat as tasting like "a cross between pork and beef."
According to Broussard, if the Hippo Bill were passed, every American, regardless of economic or social status, would have meat in their diet every day. The bill states that for just $250,000 (about $8 million in today’s dollars), uninhabited and unused U.S. government lands would become a breeding ground for a huge source of meat.
Supporters of the campaign point out that the United States has a history of importing foreign animals en masse. Between 1891 and 1902, it welcomed 1,280 reindeer from Russia to fill the void left by the decline of Alaska’s native reindeer herd.
Former President Theodore Roosevelt, who served from 1901 to 1909, was one of the first to show interest in the plan. He pledged his full support for Broussard on the issue, but it remained to be seen whether the American public would agree.
"All we have to do to avoid becoming vegetarians is to get used to eating hippos, rhinoceroses, camels, antelopes, gazelles, ibex, giraffes and other African animals," the Arizona Silver Belt newspaper wrote after the Hippo bill was introduced.
"The British eat kangaroo and like it. Horse meat is a staple in mainland Europe, and Central Americans eat lizards. Why can't Americans eat hippopotamus?" asked the Dakota Evening Times .
House Agriculture Committee members, however, had their own questions about Broussard’s proposal. Chairman Charles F. Scott asked whether the large mammals could be tamed and managed. He wondered if they would actually eat the invasive water hyacinth.
Irwin and Broussard claim that hippos would be easily domesticated and that they would enjoy eating water hyacinth. According to Irwin, the plant, which grows rapidly, would become the hippos' main food source.
Neither of them knew how wrong their theories were. Tank-like hippos would easily smash through the fences of family farms. As one of the world’s most dangerous animals, killing around 500 people a year, hippos would pose a major threat if they escaped. Furthermore, aquatic plants make up only a small part of a hippo’s diet. At night, they come out of the water to graze.
Water hyacinth is 95 percent water, says Jason A. Ferrell, director of the Center for Aquatic and Invasive Plants at the University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.
“They are so low in nutrients. Basically, if hippos eat water hyacinth, they will lose weight,” he said.
On the other hand, hippo waste is so massive that it poses a serious ecological threat just like the one Broussard wanted to address in the first place. Hippo waste adds nutrients to the water, promotes excessive algae growth, and kills native plants and fish.
Yet in 1910, even an agricultural expert like Irwin believed that hippopotamus farming was the solution to the whole problem.
A 1910 article in the US discussing the meat shortage, mentioning Congressman Broussard's proposal to raise hippos. Photo: US Library of Congress
Despite the uproar the Hippo Bill created, the US House Agriculture Committee was not convinced. They decided to put it aside,
Broussard still hoped to reintroduce the bill to Committee, but other political ambitions and the outbreak of World War I distracted him.
Broussard was elected to the US Senate in 1914 but did not complete his term. He died in 1918 after a long illness. By then, under the pressure of war, Americans had become accustomed to living without luxuries such as meat, butter, and coffee. New technology also allowed more meat to be produced with fewer resources. The plan to raise hippos for meat was abandoned.
Vu Hoang (According to Smithsonian Magazine )
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