Botswana awaits more test results on elephant carcasses

Botswana said it had test results from samples sent to Zimbabwe to determine the cause of death of hundreds of elephants but was waiting for results from South Africa next week before sharing findings with the public.

Wildlife officials are trying to determine what is killing the elephants about two months after the first carcasses were discovered.

Poaching and anthrax were ruled out as causes.

On Thursday, officials in the Okavango Delta said they verified 281 elephant carcasses and that the deaths were concentrated in an area of 8,000 square kilometres that is home to about 18,000 elephants.

Researchers reported seeing elephants that were physically weakened or wandering in circles, an indication of neurological impairment.

Some were found face down, which could indicate a sudden death.

From the air, national park workers spot carcasses splattered in droppings from vultures, which ate some of the flesh, and red paint from officials marking verified carcasses. Hundreds of elephants wandered near by.

“We are not dealing with a common thing, it looks like it’s a rare cause,” said Mmadi Reuben, principal veterinary officer at the Department of Wildlife and National Parks, who said the death rate in the affected area was below 2 per cent.

“We cannot rule out anything at this stage, it could be a virus, vegetation, overnutrition after last year’s drought ... we have asked the community not to interact with the carcasses,” Mr Reuben said.

Oduetse Kaboto, an official in the environment and tourism ministry, said results from two laboratories needed to be reconciled before publicly declaring the cause.

“We are hoping the second set of results will come in next week and that’s when we should be able to communicate to the public the cause of deaths,” he said.

Although the number of deaths so far represents a fraction of the estimated 130,000 elephants in Botswana, there are fears more could die if authorities cannot establish the cause soon.

Chris Foggin, from Zimbabwe’s Victoria Falls Wildlife Trust, which conducted the tests on elephant samples from Botswana, said only that country’s government could share the findings.

The Botswana wildlife department said the government contacted neighbours Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia and Zambia but they had not recorded similar elephant deaths.

Africa’s elephant population is declining as a result of poaching, but in Botswana, home to almost a third of the continent’s elephants, numbers increased from 80,000 in the late 1990s.