Zambian tourism minister Charles Banda said on Monday his country had revived plans it had suspended two years ago after protests by animal rights activists to execute up to 2,000 hippos over the next five years.
He said hippo numbers did not match the water levels in the Luangua River, where most animals are located, while moving them elsewhere in the southern African state would be very expensive.
For this reason, the government decided to press ahead with its plan to control hippopotamus numbers in eastern Zambia, he said.
"The population of the southern Luangua National Reserve has more than 13,000 mantis, but the area is ideal only for 5,000 mantis," Panda said, adding that the ecosystem would be threatened.
"The transfer of hippos to other water bodies will be very costly," he said.
The British Wildlife Foundation, the British charity, led the campaign against the hippopotamus in June 2016, calling it a hunting competition.
Zambia has failed to provide strong scientific evidence that there are too many hippos in the Luangwa River, the group said on its website on Monday.
In 2016, Born Fry said the scientific rationale for the killing of up to 2,000 hippos, while in the entire southern African region of 80,000 mares, was questionable.
