What's killing Botswana's elephants? Here are the top theories.

[Bayard]

More than 280 elephants are dead and officials are still trying to unravel the cause.

THEY WALK IN circles and appear dizzy before suddenly dropping dead, sometimes face-first. No one knows why. Over the past several months, hundreds of elephants have died in Botswana, some with these symptoms.

The bizarre behavior and sheer number of deaths suggest to experts that it’s unlikely that diseases known to afflict wild elephants, such as tuberculosis, are to blame. The elephants’ tusks aren’t missing, which rules out poaching for ivory. Yet the death toll keeps growing. Government officials say they’ve verified that 281 elephants have died since March 2020; conservation NGOs in the area say the death toll is even higher.

“From a population perspective this is not serious, even though many elephants have died,” says Markus Hofmeyr, a wildlife veterinarian and former head of veterinary services at Kruger National Park. “It is, however, important that there is a diagnosis made to make sure no foul play is at hand—that would be a problem for the population if it is not dealt with.”

Botswana, with an estimated 130,000 savanna elephants, is one of the species’ last strongholds in Africa, where ivory poaching has been responsible for reducing their numbers to roughly 350,000. The dying animals in Botswana lived in a roughly thousand-square-mile tract in a remote area northeast of the Okavango Delta, where an estimated 18,000 elephants, 16,000 people, and 18,000 cattle live.

According to veterinarians and wildlife experts interviewed by National Geographic, as well as an examination of past elephant die-offs, possible causes include: ingestion of toxic bacteria in water, anthrax poisoning, poisoning by humans, viral infection from rodents, or a pathogenic microbe. Then, too, it could be some combination of these causes—especially if environmental factors have played a part, such as this year’s late heavy rainfall after years of drought.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/07/botswana-elephant-death-mystery/?cmpid=org=ngp::mc=crm-email::src=ngp::cmp=editorial::add=Animals_20200924&rid=2D7EBD8232363870D75E126868635ACF

[a kennedy]

1. This is so sad........

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. That's from July. It was cyanobacteria.

Botswana: Mystery elephant deaths caused by cyanobacteria

Botswana is home to a third of Africa's declining elephant population.
...
Officials say a total of 330 elephants are now known to have died from ingesting cyanobacteria. Poaching has been ruled out as a cause of death.
...
Many of the dead elephants were found near watering holes, but until now the wildlife authorities had doubted that the bacteria were to blame because the blooms appear on the edges of ponds and elephants tend to drink from the middle.
...
The deaths "stopped towards the end of June 2020, coinciding with the drying of [water] pans", AFP quotes him as saying.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-54234396

[Bayard]

3. Thanks for the update!

[Duppers]

4. Tragic and sad. 🕯

Hope they can find the cause...because 🐘 are really good people.