Botswana probes 275 'mysterious' elephant deaths

Botswana says it is investigating a staggeringly high number of elephant carcasses - 275 - found in popular Okavango Delta area of sourn African nation in recent weeks.

Department of Wildlife and National Parks said it is mobilizing human personnel and aircraft to better understand “mysterious deaths.”

Samples have been collected for analysis at labs in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Cana and anthrax has been ruled out as cause.

“We have no reason to dispute numbers reported and we are continuing to verify reports,” Lucas Taolo, department’s acting director, told Associated Press.

He said local communities are being vised not to tamper with de elephant’s tusks.

Poaching remains a threat in country but also has been ruled out as cause of deaths.

This is “one of biggest disasters to impact elephants this century, and right in middle of one of Africa’s top tourism destinations,” director of conservation group National Park Rescue, Mark Hiley, said in an email.

“Elephants began dying in huge numbers in early May and government would normally respond within days to an event of this scale. Yet here we are, months later, with no testing completed and with no more information than we h at start.”

He said COVID-19 is an unlikely candidate but for now nothing, including poison, can be ruled out.

Botswana has world’s highest population of elephants with more than 156,000 counted in a 2013 aerial survey in country’s north.

Former wildlife minister Tshekedi Khama, bror of former president Ian Khama, has blamed poaching in Okavango Delta on President Mokgweetsi Masisi’s decision to disarm wildlife department’s anti-poaching unit in 2018.

Soon after that decision, conservation group Elephants Without Borders reported 87 elephants found stripped of ir tusks in area.

In a separate statement on Thursday, Botswana's government also announced “an alarming surge of rhinoceros poaching in Okavango Delta” in recent days.