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Botswana has announced that it has discovered the cause of death of hundreds of elephants in recent months: according to the results of investigations carried out by the government, the deaths were caused by toxins produced by bacteria present in the water that elephants drink.
Between spring and early summer, 330 elephants died in circumstances so far considered mysterious in northern Botswana, which is the southern African state with the highest concentration of animals in the world. The news had been collected around the world because such figures were considered huge for a community that, after all, was quite small: some 156 thousand elephants live in Botswana, and mainly because it was feared that the cause of death, whatever Whatever it was, it could spread and even threaten the rest of the specimens.
The government announced in July that it had opened an investigation to try to explain the death of the elephants by collecting biological samples and analyzing aerial images of the areas where the bodies were found. At a press conference on Monday, Mmadi Reuben, a veterinary officer for the Botswana Department of Wildlife and National Parks, said the elephant’s death was caused by cyanobacteria, bacteria that carry out chlorophyll photosynthesis, also known as blue algae. . in the water the elephants drank from. Reuben explained that there are still many questions being answered, in particular why only elephants died and not other animals and why only in a certain area.
No other mass deaths had been recorded in recent weeks, it appears that the surviving elephants had escaped from where the bodies were found, in the Okavango River Delta, the world’s second-largest inland river delta, and scientists had tried to understand what may have caused those identified in recent months. The hypothesis that the elephants had been killed with cyanide by ivory poachers was discarded because the dead specimens were found with their tusks still in place.
Christine Gosden, professor of molecular medicine at the University of Liverpool, explained that she was interested in the case after reading about it in the guardian, and had theorized that the death of the elephants was due to a neurotoxin called β-N-methylamino-L-alanine (or BMAA) produced by some algae. Gosden explained that he had noticed a certain correspondence between the strange behaviors observed in the elephants shortly before they died – some specimens circled and then fell to the ground – with those of whales and dolphins that get sick from the neurotoxin in question: “Let’s talk about the big ones Mammals that behave the same way: they seem lost and bewildered. ”Gosden had explained, therefore, his conclusions seem very similar to those of the Botswana health authorities.
Other scientists, on the other hand, were more skeptical and pointed out that BMAA is usually found in seawater, and that it was necessary to understand whether the amount present in the puddles formed by the Okavango River was enough to kill a huge animal. elephant-sized (although thanks to their trunks, elephants can ingest hundreds of liters of water a day, potentially absorbing a significant amount of toxins). A second hypothesis considered was that the elephants had died from the virus that causes encephalomyocarditis, mainly transmitted by rodents. Animals of this type could have frequented the same environments as elephants because in recent months there had been an increase in the cultivation of corn and sorghum.
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