In Botswana, in the Okavango Delta region, many elephants have died under difficult circumstances.
The director of the national parks and fauna of Botswana, Cyril Taolo, gives the alert to AFP. Lately, there have been a significant number of deceased elephants: "We have received a report on the deaths of 356 elephants in the northern Okavango Delta, and so far we have confirmed the deaths of 275 pachyderms." It remains to be seen what causes these sudden deaths. Indeed, the director of national parks and his teams are struggling to find out how his dead all these elephants. Samples in Zimbabwe, South Africa and Canada are in progress, according to Cyril Taolo: "Anthrax (or anthrax) is excluded. Neither is poachers suspected since the animals were found with their tusks."
According to the director of the NGO Elephants Without Borders, Michael Chase, around 70% of the elephants are dead and this would go back about a month, "while the death of the remaining 30% seems more recent, between one day and two weeks." In addition, males and females of all ages appear to be affected. It is therefore a mysterious and unidentifiable disease: "We observed an elephant turning in circles and unable to change direction despite the encouragement of the other members of the troop."
EWB had caused a controversy in 2018 by claiming to have identified 90 carcasses of pachyderm. For Michael Chase, this situation was considered the "worst episode of poaching in Africa" let him know. The government of Botswana, meanwhile, denied these figures, citing 53 carcasses of elephants predominantly deceased "from natural causes or conflicts between humans and wildlife."