Botswana is home to a third of Africa's declining elephant population. Across the world the number of elephants has reduced a lot. This is due to environment changes, deforestation, etc.  Botswana in Southern Africa has the highest number of elephants in the world. Another tragic event has been added to the already gloomy year 2020. The incidence is about the unexplained of about 350 elephants in the southern African country of Botswana in the last two months. Conservationists and officials are shocked by the mysterious mass death of the elephants. People say that the death of the elephants is a "conservation disaster". Niall McCann of the UK based charity National Park Rescue said that his colleagues in Botswana had spotted more than 350 elephant carcasses in the Okavango Delta since the starting of May. He said, "They spotted 169 in a three hour flight. To be able to see and count that many in a three hour flight was shocking. A month later further investigations found many more carcasses, and the total became over 350. This is totally unprecedented that so many numbers of elephants have died in a single event unrelated to drought.”

The Botswana government has said the reason can not be poaching because the tusks on the elephants were still intact. McCann has also said that it is not due to a natural disease called Anthrax Poisoning, which killed 100 elephants in Botswana last year. He further added that the way the animals were dying and their behaviour before dying showed a neurological condition. The elephants were seen dropping on their faces and others were seen walking in circles. McCann said, "Looking at the carcasses, some of them have fallen straight on their face, showing they died very quickly. Others have died more slowly. So it's very difficult to say what the reason is.” Currently no one knows the real reason why the animals are dying. The lab results will come after many weeks.

Tags

• Elephants
• Dead
• Africa

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