What is killing elephants? Is it a new pathogen or a poison?
More than 350 elephants have mysteriously died in northern Botswana in the past two months, what scientists describe as a “conservation disaster”. Botswana residents see the loss as a blow to the national tourism economy and, in many places, as a loss to the community.
“It is the most important thing that has happened to elephants in a long, long time,” Dr. Niall McCann, co-founder of UK-based charity National Park Rescue, told ABC News. “Outside of the droughts in the 1970s, I don’t know of a death that was so important.”
The Botswana government is investigating. “To date, we have verified 275 carcasses of the 356 that have been reported so far in the area north of the Okavango Delta,” said Dr. Mmadi Reuben, chief veterinarian of the Botswana Department of Wildlife and National Parks. The killer could be a natural pathogen or a poison, Dr. Rubean told ABC News, but “poaching has been ruled out since the bodies were found intact.”
“The laboratory in the country has also ruled out anthrax,” he said, when ABC News contacted him by phone.
“We do the step-by-step elimination of possible causes of mortality,” he explained. “So far, we have not been able to rule out poisoning or an infectious disease. The diagnostic plan includes testing for possible known causes as well as for new pathogens.”
“Three laboratories in Zimbabwe, South Africa and Canada have been identified to process samples taken from dead elephants,” the Ministry of Environment, Natural Resources, Conservation and Tourism said in a written statement on Thursday.
“Samples of the carcasses, environmental samples of the soil and water, as well as samples of live animals were sent to regional laboratories and abroad,” Reuben explained. “We are waiting for results and continuing the dialogue.”
But he said, there may be clues. “Some of the elephants have profound weakness in their hind legs, suggesting the potential for toxins to affect [central nervous system] function of the animal. ”
Most of the corpses have been found grouped around water sources near the Okavango Delta, in normal times, an important tourist safari destination. The condition of the bodies suggests that the elephants have been dying for some time as many remains are much more deteriorated than others, a local conservationist told ABC News.
Government teams are on the ground, dealing with the carcasses, and Rubén said they are “removing the fangs of all the dead animals, to prevent the illegal ivory harvest.”
The research team, equipped with full PPE, he said, continues to treat the disease with the necessary precautions, as it is unclear whether it could be transmitted to humans. The government has also issued a warning to the local community to stay away from the bodies.
There could be a chance that elephants are dying of an unknown disease, “McCann said.” So the possibility of the pathogen jumping[ing] in humans it is also impossible to rule out at this point. ” Yes, it is a conservation disaster, “he said,” but it also has the potential to be a public health crisis. ”
Botswana is home to the world’s largest elephant population, with more than a third of Africa’s elephants, according to the latest Great Elephant Census, which Rubean’s colleagues at the Department of Wildlife and Natural Parks helped produce . It is also one of the most stable countries in Africa with one of the best wildlife records. Tourism represents a fifth of Botswana’s GDP.
For all of those reasons, “We are really putting in every effort to really get to the bottom of this,” Rubean said. “It is a very worrying situation, the most baffling scenario of elephant mortality I have ever experienced in my career.”
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