Elephants died from ‘disease’:
Parks authorities in Zimbabwe has said that the recent deaths of elephants have been caused by a bacterial disease that has previously affected elephants in Asia and other animals in southern Africa, although more tests will still be carried out.
Fulton Mangwanya, the director-general of the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, told a parliamentary committee that 34 elephants have died so far and “many” more could still die “in the short term”.
“All results to date point to the cause of these elephant deaths being a disease known as hemorrhagic septicemia,” said Mangwanya, noting that the disease does not appear to have been previously recorded as causing deaths among Africa’s savannah elephants.
“However, it has been reported to kill Asian elephants in India. It has also affected cattle, and chickens in southern Africa in which it can cause massive mortality. It has also been recognized in buffalo and some other wildlife species in this part of this world,” he said.
He said the disease “may have been around in elephants in this region for some time,” pointing to specimens from two dead elephants from the vast Hwange National Park in 2019 that showed “the same microscopic pathology”, although a definitive diagnosis could not be made at that time.
Most of the elephants that died recently in the Pandamasue Forest, located between Hwange National Park and Victoria Falls, were weak or young, mostly under 15 years old.