Louisiana Tried To Import Hippopotamuses For Food In 1910

Back in 1910, there was a meat shortage in the US. They tried to import hippopotamuses (or hippopotami) into the Louisiana swamps in order to use them for food!

Hungry yet? Louisiana Congressman Robert Broussard hit up President Teddy Roosevelt, wanting to import hippos into the Louisiana bayous in order to use them for meat. Where it gets interesting is the two men hired to import the hippos were rival spies who were ordered to kill one another before they had to make nice, and do this job together!

Oh yeah, Brett Ratner and Edward Norton's individual production companies are making a movie about it. Here's what Deadline had to say about the movie:

Responding to a meat shortage in the U.S. in 1910, two bitter enemies joined forces to try and import hippopotamuses to the swamps of Louisiana and convince Americans to eat them. Even though Theodore Roosevelt and The New York Times endorsed the plan, the fact that you don't find hippo on the menu shows how well their campaign fared. Key to the movie is the rivalry of the hippo duo, both of whom were spies. Frederick Russell Burnham was a frontiersman and freelance adventurer whose exploits were the inspiration for the Boy Scouts, and he teamed with Fritz Duquesne, aka the Black Panther, a virtuoso con man and cynical saboteur who believed only in his own glorification and revenge. Burnham and Duquesne only recently had been under orders to assassinate each other, and they would return to being bitter enemies. But they took a break to try and get American hungry for hippos.

Obviously it didn't work out, 'cause there's no hippo meat on your daily menu, but I think the intrigue for a movie lies with the two spies.