The elephants of Botswana are dying, hundreds of carcasses found scattered throughout the territory. And poaching has nothing to do with it
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves himBotswana's elephants are dying. Hundreds of carcasses have been found scattered in a remote region in the north of the country - and poaching has nothing to do with it.
The mystery of the death of the Botswana pachyderms has been going on for months. The first carcasses of at least 67 adult elephants were found in May, Botswana's Acting Permanent Secretary of the Environment Oduetse Koboto said at a press conference on Friday. Aerial surveys of the Okavango Delta, a wetland near the border with Namibia, confirmed a total of 281 dead specimens, although they have been reported 356 carcasses.
Hundreds of elephants are mysteriously dying, it is an unprecedented environmental disaster
Compared to its neighbors Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia, Botswana has long since banned the hunting of elephants and is a leading country in efforts against poaching.
Today around 130.000 elephants live here, 18.000 of which forage in the immediate vicinity of the places where the carcasses were found.
"This is not a very significant mortality," Cyril Taolo, acting director of the Department of Wildlife and National Parks, said at a press conference on Friday.
But conservationists think otherwise and are increasingly concerned, given the species' vulnerability and dealing with a totally unknown threat is disconcerting.
"It's worrying," Lindsay said. "If it's a disease, it could be catastrophic," said Keith Lindsay, a conservation biologist from Oxford, England, who specializes in elephants.
The tests have already ruled out anthrax. Furthermore, many of the dead elephants were still in their early years, too young to perish from natural causes. And the experts thus return to point the finger at the man:
"The only thing that kills elephants quickly is people killing elephants." But these specimens were not killed for the ivory, their tusks were not removed. So what for?
Thus the hypothesis of a culpable mass poisoning arises, for reasons related to the exploitation of land and agriculture. There could be a lot of interests at stake.
Test results are slow in coming, for the government the slowdown was caused by the restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic. But experts are also skeptical of delays.
Botswana authorities say they are investigating meticulously. But they have not been able to rule out either poisoning or disease. The way animals die - many fall off their faces - and sightings of other elephants walking in circles indicate something potentially attacking their neurological systems ...
Fonte: National Geographic, NBCNews
