Mass Elephant Die-Off Caused by Cyanobacteria, Officials Say

Tests point to a toxic algal bloom that might have led to the unprecedented deaths of hundreds of African elephants in Botswana earlier this year, but the evidence isn’t conclusive.

Written byMax Kozlov

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Months after hundreds of African elephants mysteriously dropped dead in one concentrated region in Botswana, puzzling conservationists across the world, government officials say that test results show toxins produced by naturally occurring cyanobacteria caused the animals’ demise.

Cyanobacteria can proliferate in standing water, producing lethal cyanotoxins, and can grow into large blue-green algal blooms. “Our latest tests have detected cyanobacterial neurotoxins to be the cause of deaths. These are bacteria found in water,” Mmadi Reuben, principal veterinary officer at the Botswana Department of Wildlife and National Parks, said at a news conference on Monday (September 21), according to the The Guardian.

The government in the landlocked southern African country, home to the world’s largest elephant population, announced in July it had launched an investigation into the more than 300 deaths, collecting samples from the carcasses to better understand the situation.

Aerial surveys showed that most carcasses were ...

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Meet the Author

Max Kozlov
Max is a science journalist from Boston. Though he studied cognitive neuroscience, he now prefers to write about brains rather than research them. Prior to writing for The Scientist as an editorial intern in late 2020 and early 2021, Max worked at the Museum of Science in Boston, where his favorite part of the job was dressing in a giant bee costume and teaching children about honeybees. He was also a AAAS Mass Media Fellow, where he worked as a science reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Read more of his work at www.maxkozlov.com.
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