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Colombia plans to allow commercial hunting of the ‘friendliest animal on the planet’

Scientists and animal rights activists differ on the need to allow the hunting of the world’s largest rodent, but agree that the deterioration of its ecosystem puts it at risk

Emma Jaramillo Bernat

Bogotá - SEP 01, 2025 - 10:47 UPDATED Sep 01, 2025 - 13:44 EDT


Before the capybara became a commercial object, through its appearance as a Disney character, the massive arrival of stuffed animals made in China, or its explosion in fame as “the friendliest animal on the planet,” its herds roamed for tens of millions of years across the flooded savannas of the Orinoquía, the Colombian-Venezuelan plains east of the Andes. “They’re divine,” acknowledges Hugo López Arévalo, a biologist and professor at the National University of Colombia, who has dedicated part of his career to the study of the rodents and who, contradictory as it may seem, argues before the Ministry of the Environment for the authorization of their commercial hunting. As with Pablo Escobar’s hippos, the debate about allowing the hunting of capybara is revived from time to time: it has such high reproduction rates that in Argentina and Brazil it has been considered a pest. The positions of scientists and animal rights activists seem irreconcilable. Although Lena Estrada ruled out the possibility in one of her final decisions before resigning as Environment Minister, López Árevalo and his colleagues reacted with indignation. The debate continues.

Scientists point out that over 20 years of research, led by public universities and funded by state coffers and international cooperation, demonstrate that allowing hunting of between 5% and 10% of the population does not affect its overall composition. They argue that part of the population dies cyclically due to droughts and that the sustainable use of the animals’ meat, bones, or skin can be promoted, in compliance with the Convention on Biological Diversity, which Colombia signed in 1992. This would allow the state to control an illegal activity.



Animal rights activists, on the other hand, consider it a cruel practice and point out that hunting is not the central issue, since the legal consumption of capybara meat comes from captive breeding. Furthermore, “how can we trust the controls [put in place by] an entity that has been unable to combat environmental crimes?” asks Andrea Padilla, a senator from the Green Party and a well-known animal rights activist. In writing, the congresswoman comments that, in addition to the ethical reasons she finds for not eating their meat, it would be desirable to “recover and protect their habitat, conserve the floodplains where they live, monitor wild populations, and protect the health of individuals.”

It’s a discussion that encompasses water pollution, deforestation, food security, and, especially, rice. This staple food for Colombians is central to the debate. López Arévalo agrees with animal rights activists that — if the capybara is at risk as a species in the long term — it is not because of hunting but because of the radical and silent transformation the Eastern Plains are undergoing due to large plantations of rubber, soy, palm, sugarcane, and, most importantly, rice.


The advance of rice

The Eastern Plains, a traditionally cattle-raising region that serves as a natural transition to the Amazon, have been undergoing a transformation. Beginning in the 1980s, rice began to gain traction, as the watery, sunny savannas are highly conducive to its cultivation. It has gained such momentum that, in 2024, La Oriniquía provided 55% of the grain consumed in Colombia, according to the National Federation of Rice Growers (Fedearroz).

For Rodrigo Botero, director of the Foundation for Conservation and Sustainable Development (FCDS), the model that has filled the plains with wheat ears has had an enormous environmental impact. “The rice industry between Arauca and Casanare moves channels, entire rivers, without any control. Since the land is cheap, they hit it very hard, use chemical fertilizers, and make massive use of pesticides. How many thousands of liters are ending up in the waters?” he asks. “Rice farmers have larger water collection permits than the hydrocarbon industry.” He explains that on the southern edge of the Orinoquía, where the Amazon begins, there are signs of an advance in rice cultivation that is “destroying the country’s floodplain forests.” He adds that the loss of these ecosystems increases vulnerability to extreme events caused by climate change, such as floods or droughts.

Jorge Ardila, an agricultural engineer who is part of the Fedearroz research team in Yopal, one of the largest cities in the region, qualifies the criticism. He argues that agricultural dynamics are complex, and therefore it is not possible to blame a single industry for environmental degradation. He points out that in the plains, most rice is grown using the rainfed method, which depends on rainfall, and emphasizes that rice farmers have managed to reduce their water footprint by 55%. “There are agrochemicals that are applied, and they have an impact on any crop, but with monitoring we have reduced herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides.” For Ardila, the problem is the rice farmers who are not affiliated with the federation. “When people are doing well, it encourages ‘parachute’ farmers, who expand their areas or the agricultural frontier,” he states, noting that they are less strict in environmental protection.

The union says it is aware that the transformation of the savannas could affect the habitat of capybaras and other animals, but clarifies that control and demarcation are the responsibility of the state. “If there is no territorial planning that provides guidelines on where to plant and where not to plant, it’s difficult,” explains Ardila. The agronomist points to the livestock industry as the main cause of the expansion of the agricultural frontier. He states that many of these ranchers hire rice farmers as “paratroopers” on a one-time basis to prepare the land, and then fill it with cattle.


A new landscape

Adapted to live in flooded savannas, covering themselves in mud to protect themselves from the sun, and coexisting with other animals, it’s hard to imagine the capybaras’ subsistence outside the ecosystem in which they evolved. Although the origin of this rodent can be traced back to Africa before the continental divide, the Capybara “is as Colombian, or as neotropical, as can be,” explains López Arévalo. Its trail is evidenced by fossils found in La Guajira, dating back to the time when the desert in the far north of the country was a tropical forest.

Now they blend in with the rice fields in the same landscape. Rice farmers find their footprints, know they pass through their fields, and sometimes feed on their rice, especially when they are young. Although López Arévalo has heard of cases in which landowners have them killed to protect crops, Fedearroz claims to have no reports of this and says that farmers sometimes use electric fences to scare them away. Capybaras, however, don’t spend long in the rice fields; they only cross them during their eternal journey through the savanna.

Amid these changes, López Arévalo insists on the importance of hunting. “We can’t think that everything green is bioeconomy, or that everything that isn’t meat is good,” he says, noting that selling capybara meat could provide economic benefits for the community that counteract the appeal of extensive farming. A rice farmers’ strike in July highlighted the fragility of a sector that sometimes sees prices fall below production costs. And one that is racing to find solutions: in 2030, rice from the United States will enter Colombia tariff-free, according to the signed FTA, exposing local rice farmers to a crisis.

Environmental impact studies for the hunting initiative establish that there is a potential market for capybara meat outside the Eastern Plains, where residents prefer pork or beef. But researchers from the National University consulted with prestigious chefs, who expressed interest in using it on their menus as a novel attraction. “In Australia, kangaroo meat is sold in supermarkets, in a dedicated display case. Whoever wants it knows they can get it there,” explains López Arévalo, who urges that the debate not be shelved: “If we stall the discussion, and don’t take into account that there are abundant populations in some places, we will see how the capybara will disappear due to rice paddies or because people killed them because they became a pest.”