Why elephants are dying

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Eps 1: Why elephants are dying

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"From a population perspective this is not serious, even though many elephants have died," says Markus Hofmeyr, a wildlife veterinarian and former head of veterinary services at Kruger National Park.
But Botswana's Department of Wildlife and National Parks says it has eliminated anthrax as a possibility, though details about how remain scarce.
Wildlife Watch is an investigative reporting project between National Geographic Society and National Geographic Partners focusing on wildlife crime and exploitation.

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Elephant numbers have fallen by 62% in the last decade and could be largely extinct by the end of the next decade, according to a new study.
An estimated 100 African elephants are killed every day by poachers seeking ivory, meat and body parts, with only 400,000 left. The price of ivory in China has tripled and the illegal ivory trade has made it extremely profitable. This has allowed illegal poaching to go viral, leading to the slaughter of tens of thousands of them.
Today, an estimated 70,000 African elephants are killed annually for the ivory trade, and about 80% of that comes from tusk poaching. This poaching has led to indiscriminate shooting of elephants of all ages, which has led to a reduction in the number of surviving elephants and their offspring and the loss of their habitat. Ivory comes from a variety of sources, including hunting, poaching and illegal trade in meat and body parts.
In 1982, the tusk of an African elephant weighed 9.7 kg on average, and today it weighs more than 20 times as much. That's according to the World Wildlife Fund.
However, it is possible that any toxins could be involved in the recent death - but that has also been ruled out. No tusk carcasses have been found, suggesting that ivory poachers are not responsible for the deaths.
Officials and conservationists hope to get answers in the coming weeks, but it remains a mystery how exactly the cause of death and possible causes of the deaths are to be found.
The deaths were revealed to conservationists two months ago when a carcass was discovered during a flight over the area. It is not the first elephant death in the region: last year more than 100 elephants died, mainly due to drought. Elephants appear to have started dying in March, but their numbers have since declined, and that is a cause for concern worldwide.
The deaths could be due to anthrax, AFP reported at the time, as elephants may have ingested contaminated soil with anthrax while grazing in dried-up grasslands - in water holes in wilted grasslands or through pastures on wilting grassland.
While scientists are still unable to say exactly what has affected the reported 356 elephants in Botswana's Okavango Delta, we know that the deaths are not only the result of anthrax, but also of elephant deaths in their natural habitat. Although hundreds of elephants have died in a short period of time, they seem to die individually, not in groups. Elephants have been observed as highly social beings who form deep family ties, often spending hours or even days silently examining the bodies and bones of other dead elephants - often in places where peers or family members died.
Over 300 elephants have died in Botswana's Okavango Delta in the past two years - a mysterious trend that has alarmed local conservationists. According to local reports, more than 350 elephants died in the same period, most of them in an area of the region.
The deaths occur in Botswana's famous Okavango Delta, home to more than 15,000 elephants and a popular ecotourism destination. Elephants are often found near water holes in the region and on the banks of the river, local reports show. The deaths occurred in and around the botanical capital of Gaborone and the neighboring province of KwaZulu-Natal, both part of a larger region of Africa's most populous country.
A total of 70 per cent of the deaths occurred near water holes, Phoebe Weston told the Guardian. The elephants appear to collapse and die at the waterhole, while others reportedly wander around.
While experts are looking for a cause, poaching has been ruled out because tusks were removed from dead elephants. Government conservationists have not ruled out poaching at this early stage, however, as the skulls were found intact in the carcasses along with their tusk.
Poachers sometimes use the poison cyanide to kill elephants to remove their tusks for ivory. Africa's elephant population has declined overall because of poaching, but Botswana is an exception, with the number of elephants rising from 80,000 in the late 1990 "s to 130,000.
Wildlife officials say they are concerned that the dead carcasses could attract ivory poachers looking for the animals' tusks. Although the carcass does not appear to be a sign that poison is to blame, the trapped animals may have died of natural causes such as hunger or disease.
Elephant numbers are falling across Africa, but Botswana is a rare success story. According to the World Wildlife Fund, the country's elephant population has grown from 80,000 in the 1990s to 130,000 today.
Against this backdrop of increasing poaching, it suggests that times are changing for Botswana's elephants. It seems unlikely that poachers are to blame, as the tusks of dead elephants are not removed, and although poachers are the elephants "best known killers, they are known to be attacked by local farmers to drive them away.