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The 2020 elephant die-off in Botswana

The cause of deaths of 350 elephants in 2020 in a relatively small unprotected area of northern Botswana is unknown, and may never be known. Media speculations about it ignore ecological realities. Worse, they make conjectures that can be detrimental to wildlife and sometimes discredit conservation...

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Autores principales: van Aarde, Rudi J., Pimm, Stuart L., Guldemond, Robert, Huang, Ryan, Maré, Celesté
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7808262/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33510975
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10686
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author van Aarde, Rudi J.
Pimm, Stuart L.
Guldemond, Robert
Huang, Ryan
Maré, Celesté
author_facet van Aarde, Rudi J.
Pimm, Stuart L.
Guldemond, Robert
Huang, Ryan
Maré, Celesté
author_sort van Aarde, Rudi J.
collection PubMed
description The cause of deaths of 350 elephants in 2020 in a relatively small unprotected area of northern Botswana is unknown, and may never be known. Media speculations about it ignore ecological realities. Worse, they make conjectures that can be detrimental to wildlife and sometimes discredit conservation incentives. A broader understanding of the ecological and conservation issues speaks to elephant management across the Kavango–Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area that extends across Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Our communication addresses these. Malicious poisoning and poaching are unlikely to have played a role. Other species were unaffected, and elephant carcases had their tusks intact. Restriction of freshwater supplies that force elephants to use pans as a water source possibly polluted by blue-green algae blooms is a possible cause, but as yet not supported by evidence. No other species were involved. A contagious disease is the more probable one. Fences and a deep channel of water confine these elephants’ dispersal. These factors explain the elephants’ relatively high population growth rate despite a spell of increased poaching during 2014–2018. While the deaths represent only ~2% of the area’s elephants, the additive effects of poaching and stress induced by people protecting their crops cause alarm. Confinement and relatively high densities probably explain why the die-off occurred only here. It suggests a re-alignment or removal of fences that restrict elephant movements and limits year-round access to freshwater.
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spelling pubmed-78082622021-01-27 The 2020 elephant die-off in Botswana van Aarde, Rudi J. Pimm, Stuart L. Guldemond, Robert Huang, Ryan Maré, Celesté PeerJ Conservation Biology The cause of deaths of 350 elephants in 2020 in a relatively small unprotected area of northern Botswana is unknown, and may never be known. Media speculations about it ignore ecological realities. Worse, they make conjectures that can be detrimental to wildlife and sometimes discredit conservation incentives. A broader understanding of the ecological and conservation issues speaks to elephant management across the Kavango–Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area that extends across Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Our communication addresses these. Malicious poisoning and poaching are unlikely to have played a role. Other species were unaffected, and elephant carcases had their tusks intact. Restriction of freshwater supplies that force elephants to use pans as a water source possibly polluted by blue-green algae blooms is a possible cause, but as yet not supported by evidence. No other species were involved. A contagious disease is the more probable one. Fences and a deep channel of water confine these elephants’ dispersal. These factors explain the elephants’ relatively high population growth rate despite a spell of increased poaching during 2014–2018. While the deaths represent only ~2% of the area’s elephants, the additive effects of poaching and stress induced by people protecting their crops cause alarm. Confinement and relatively high densities probably explain why the die-off occurred only here. It suggests a re-alignment or removal of fences that restrict elephant movements and limits year-round access to freshwater. PeerJ Inc. 2021-01-11 /pmc/articles/PMC7808262/ /pubmed/33510975 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10686 Text en © 2021 van Aarde et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Conservation Biology
van Aarde, Rudi J.
Pimm, Stuart L.
Guldemond, Robert
Huang, Ryan
Maré, Celesté
The 2020 elephant die-off in Botswana
title The 2020 elephant die-off in Botswana
title_full The 2020 elephant die-off in Botswana
title_fullStr The 2020 elephant die-off in Botswana
title_full_unstemmed The 2020 elephant die-off in Botswana
title_short The 2020 elephant die-off in Botswana
title_sort 2020 elephant die-off in botswana
topic Conservation Biology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7808262/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33510975
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10686
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