A large group of elephants that mysteriously perished in Botswana was killed by a toxic bacteria found in standing water, said a principal veterinarian with the Department of Wildlife and National Parks.
An investigation into hundreds of elephant carcasses found in the Okavango Delta, a vast inland river delta of Botswana, found that the animals ingested cyanobacteria, a naturally occurring toxic bacteria that has been linked to warmer weather in the region.
Mmadi Reuben, the principal veterinarian at the Department of Wildlife and National Parks, said tests performed on the elephants found the bacteria present in all of the carcasses.
“Our latest tests have detected cyanobacterial neurotoxins to be the cause of deaths. These are bacteria found in water,” Reuben said at a press conference on Monday.
A multinational team of researchers was initially skeptical about bacteria causing the deaths because elephants tend to drink from the middle of watering holes and cyanobacteria forms closer to the edge.
Reuben noted that elephant deaths in the region coincided with the end of the dry season but that not all of the questions surrounding the event have been fully answered.
“We have many questions still to be answered, such as why the elephants only and why that area only,” Reuben added. “We have a number of hypotheses we are investigating.”
