By : Ben Axelson
https://connect.oregonlive.com/staff/bsaxelson/posts.html
More than 300 elephants in the southern African country Botswana have died as a result of ingesting toxic blue-green algae, officials said Monday.
Blue-green algae, also called cyanobacteria, produces a neurotoxin that has been found in the Okavango Delta wetland, where elephant carcasses began turning up in May, NBC News reported.
The number of dead elephants has risen from 281, reported in July, to 330 as of the announcement this week.
>>“We have many questions still to be answered such as why the elephants only (died) and why that area only," said Mmadi Reuben, principal veterinary officer at Botswana’s Department of Wildlife and National Parks. "We have a number of hypotheses we are investigating.”
In neighboring Zimbabwe, another 20 elephant carcasses were discovered, also believed to have succumbed to a bacterial infection.
>>A 2019 study using satellite imagery showed the frequency and size of blue-green algal blooms is increasing around the world in lakes with average temperatures that have gone up over time due to climate change. Algal blooms can be a normal occurrence when lake water warms in summer months, but in certain conditions it creates large “dead zones” which can last for months and suffocate wildlife.
Blue-green algae blooms are regularly reported in lakes in Upstate New York, including recently in Skaneateles and Owasco Lakes. Last year dozens of blooms were reported everywhere from Long Island to Western N.Y. However, the species of cynobacteria blamed for elephant deaths in Botswana was not specified, and it is unclear whether it is the same as the algal blooms that seasonally appear in some New York lakes.
>>A CDC handout from the National Center for Environmental Health calls the cyanotoxins produced by blue-green algae “among the most powerful natural poisons known," and notes that there no remedies to counter their effects.
https://www.oregonlive.com/environment/2020/09/toxic-blue-green-algae-is-killing-african-elephants-by-the-hundreds-officials-say.html