Anacostia ‘Crack Hippos’ Spotted in Sligo Creek

A Silver Spring family got the surprise of a lifetime when they sighted three of DC’s infamous “crack hippos” under the Sligo Creek Bridge. Doug Momary says he picked up his kids and backed away slowly, aware of the fact that hippos kill up to 500 people a year in Africa.

The so-called ‘crack hippos’ got their name because they were brought over to Washington by drug kingpin Rayful Edmond III. In the late 1980s, Edmond smuggled four hippos to his waterfront estate on Anacostia Avenue near Kingman Island. They were intended purely to entertain; Edmond also collected tigers, ostriches, and Australian crocodiles.

When Edmond was convicted in 1990, the hippos were deemed too frail to rehabilitate, so they were left to roam the polluted Anacostia River, where conservationists expected them to soon perish. But in the ensuing decades, a multi-billion-dollar effort to restore the Anacostia also restored the hippos’ ulcerous lesions. They began to thrive.

The crack hippos spend most of their time near Kingman Island by RFK Stadium

The hippos remain there to this day, and their numbers have increased dramatically. As of 2021, there are thought to be 30 to 50 of them spread across a range from Kingman Island to Bladensburg. Until the sighting in Sligo Creek this week, none had been seen in Maryland’s Anacostia River tributaries.

According to Maryland conservationist Emily Peden, the three hippos seen in Sligo Creek were young males who likely diverted from the main Anacostia herd in search of mates. She said no intervention was necessary and they were expected to return to the group by September. “The deeper waters of the Anacostia are better suited for hippos than Sligo Creek,” Peden said.

While DC officials largely ignored the invasive hippos for decades, Maryland’s top brass plan to stop their encroachment. The Department of Environment will embark on a mass sterilization campaign, according to Peden. But hippos have a typical life expectancy of 40 to 50 years, so don’t worry about the descendants of Edmond’s prize quartet. They’re likely to be around for a good while yet.