Months after more than 300 elephants were found dead in northwestern Botswana, the nation has announced that it has found the cause of their deaths—toxins produced by a unique type of algae
“Our latest tests have detected cyanobacterial neurotoxins to be the cause of deaths,” said Mmadi Reuben, the principal veterinary officer of Botswana’s department of wildlife, at a Monday news conference. But questions remain, he acknowledged, including why only elephants died and why the deaths were concentrated in one region.
If it was cyanobacteria, he says, it would still be complicated. The organisms “produce all kinds of neurotoxins,” he says. “So it’s very hard to work out exactly what’s happened.” The elephants that died were African elephants, which the IUCN classifies as “vulnerable.” These elephants face a large variety of threats, many of which were considered as Botswana tried to figure out what had happened to the elephants who died unexpectedly this year. Poaching was a prime suspect, but at the news conference, another spokesperson said there was no evidence of human involvement in the elephant deaths.
Cyanobacterial blooms occur when still, warm water—like a pond—has so much nitrogen and phosphorus that the algae are able to breed and grow at an extremely fast rate, spreading throughout the pond. Scientists anticipate that they will become an even bigger problem in the future, as a result of both climate change-related warming and drought and human population growth. Sewage and agricultural fertilizer are two potent sources of nitrogen and phosphorus.
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