King’s College London’s new study has confirmed that 350 African elephants died in Botswana, Botswana’s capital city during the year 2020 as a result of drinking water from waterholes where the toxic algal populations had increased due to climate changes.
According to the lead author, their analysis indicates that animals may have been poisoned after drinking from watering-holes where toxic blooms or blue-green alga (or cyanobacteria) had formed following a wet and dry year. Davide Lomeo is a PhD candidate in King’s College London’s Department of Geography, co-supervised with Plymouth Marine Laboratory and Natural History Museum. He said that: ”
The first elephant carcasses in the Okavango Delta’s north-eastern region were spotted between May 2020 and June 2020. Poaching, however, was quickly ruled out.” This event caused global alarm, as it is now believed that 350 elephants have perished. The toxins produced by algae in the watering holes were suspected as the cause. However, the evidence is still inconclusive. This was partly because the event occurred when the COVID-19 Pandemic restricted movement and samples could not be collected. In the same year, 25 elephants died in Zimbabwe of septicaemia. This casts doubts on the algal toxin theory. The team, however, wrote in Science of The Total Environmentthat their analysis confirms the toxic algae was the culprit. The team analyzed the correlation between 3000 waterholes, and locations of dead elephants using satellite data.
They found that waterholes close to the carcasses had higher algal counts and more blooms in 2020 than in previous years, especially during the time associated with mass mortality. Davide. “19659012” After drinking the water, it was estimated that elephants walked on average 16.5 kilometers from toxic waterholes. They died in 88 to 90 hours after exposure. He said that these findings indicate a higher risk of algal toxin presence in the waterholes. The team believes that the transition from a dry year (2019) to a wetter one in 2020 may have caused a significant amount of sediments to be resuspended from the soil, which in turn has led to the unheard of algal growth. Davide stated:
“Southern Africa will become hotter and drier under climate change, and waterholes in this region are likely to be dry for longer periods of time.” These findings indicate that there could be negative impacts on the quantity and quality of water, as well as the potentially catastrophic consequences for animals. Researchers from Queen’s University Belfast and Plymouth Marine Laboratory were also included in the research.
