Botswana authorities have reached the conclusion of the mysterious deaths of hundreds of elephants recently. They say that it was caused due to the toxins produced by the growth of cyanobacteria in water. In recent months, this incident had left the authorities in a perplexed state. Botswana is a shelter to third of the continent’s declining elephant population and after this incident in July, the authorities had launched an investigation into the mysterious deaths, collecting samples from the carcasses and mobilizing personnel and aircraft to better understand the situation.
They have given the reports and according to it, the latest tests have detected cyanobacterial neurotoxins to be the cause of deaths. These are bacteria found in water as informed on Monday. However, many questions still to be answered such as why the elephants only died, not other animals and why that area only. They have a number of hypotheses that they are investigating.
Data source: Al Jazeera