Recent and related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23707920
Botswana: Lab tests to solve mystery of hundreds of dead elephants
11–20 of 80 posts
Re: Botswana: Lab tests to solve mystery of hundreds of dead elephants
#12Maybe it has something to do with Botswana's lifting of their ban on elephant hunting, apparently because "The number and high levels of human-elephant conflict and the consequent impact on livelihoods was increasing." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-48374880 They subsequently auctioned off permits to hunt elephants. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-51413420
Back in May, Botswana's government ruled out poaching as a reason - noting the tusks had not been removed, according to Phys.org. There are other things which point to something other than poaching. "It is only elephants that are dying and nothing else," Dr McCann said. "If it was cyanide used by poachers, you would expect to see other deaths." Dr McCann has also tentatively ruled out natural anthrax poisoning, which…
The reason for the lifting of the ban was both for hunting tourism and allowing people to kill elephants that interfere with their livelihoods. If you're killing elephants because they might interfere with your farming, etc., I wouldn't expect to see their tusks removed.
I would imagine that hunters (who have already been issued permits to kill 60 elephants so far, see https://www.reuters.com/article/us-botswana-elephants/botswa... ) would take some part of the elephant as a trophy, so it probably isn't a result of the legal hunting permits.
Just to be pedantic and a bit conspiratorial, poaching is defined as the illegal hunting of an animal. Since lifting a ban on hunting elephants is definitely controversial, I would imagine it's in Botswana's government's interests to be specific in their wording. They've only "ruled out poaching as a reason," they haven't ruled out that these elephants were killed by people.
Re: Botswana: Lab tests to solve mystery of hundreds of dead elephants
#13The number of mass animal deaths seems to be greatly increasing in over the last two decades: - Half of all Saiga antelopes (120k) died over a month, 2015 [1] - Recent unexplained dog deaths in Norway, 2019 [2] - The ongoing white nose syndrome epidemic that's ravaging bat populations in North America [3] - Gray whales beaching themselves all along US West Coast, 2019 [4] - Ongoing, mass die-off of about 30% of frog…
There's also the rabbit pandemic covered in this recent New Yorker article:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/07/06/the-rabbit-out...
Re: Botswana: Lab tests to solve mystery of hundreds of dead elephants
#14The number of mass animal deaths seems to be greatly increasing in over the last two decades: - Half of all Saiga antelopes (120k) died over a month, 2015 [1] - Recent unexplained dog deaths in Norway, 2019 [2] - The ongoing white nose syndrome epidemic that's ravaging bat populations in North America [3] - Gray whales beaching themselves all along US West Coast, 2019 [4] - Ongoing, mass die-off of about 30% of frog…
We look for villains but the real problem is simply humans in general.
We do so much damage to the world.
Plastic, greenhouse gases, overfishing, etc. to support our way of life.
Lots of other examples...We kill millions of birds with our pets, buildings, and green energy
We need to find a way to reduce our impact on the planet.
Re: Botswana: Lab tests to solve mystery of hundreds of dead elephants
#15You guys should consider donating to David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust[0][1] which takes care of elephant and rhino orphans. For $50 a year, you can become a sponsor of a particular animal and they'll send you photos and updates about how your sponsored animal is doing. You can for example sponsor this little fella [2][3].
There is also the the International Anti-Poaching Foundation[4][5] which fights poachers. The founder, Damien Mander[6] is an Australian ex spec-ops sniper who is using his military experience to train park rangers since they, unlike the poachers, tend to be poorly equipped and trained as well as understaffed.
[0] http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sheldrick_Wildlife_Trust
[2] https://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/orphans/murit
[3] http://instagram.com/p/sigT3IAUKb
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Anti-Poaching_Fo...
Re: Botswana: Lab tests to solve mystery of hundreds of dead elephants
#16The number of mass animal deaths seems to be greatly increasing in over the last two decades: - Half of all Saiga antelopes (120k) died over a month, 2015 [1] - Recent unexplained dog deaths in Norway, 2019 [2] - The ongoing white nose syndrome epidemic that's ravaging bat populations in North America [3] - Gray whales beaching themselves all along US West Coast, 2019 [4] - Ongoing, mass die-off of about 30% of frog…
The environment has not changed much at all in the past two decades.
You spuriously quote a few random cases of sudden death and claim it has been on the uptick but lack the holistic data of the past few hundred years to determine whether that's a true statement or not.
The beached whale could be caused by shifts in Earth's geomagnetic field, which whales use to navigate: https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/weakening-earths-magnetic-field-co...
Diseases are caused by random mutations of bacterial, fungal and viral sources, and have occurred since the beginning of life itself.
Re: Botswana: Lab tests to solve mystery of hundreds of dead elephants
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Back in May, Botswana's government ruled out poaching as a reason - noting the tusks had not been removed, according to Phys.org. There are other things which point to something other than poaching. "It is only elephants that are dying and nothing else," Dr McCann said. "If it was cyanide used by poachers, you would expect to see other deaths." Dr McCann has also tentatively ruled out natural anthrax poisoning, which…
The reason for the lifting of the ban was both for hunting tourism and allowing people to kill elephants that interfere with their livelihoods. If you're killing elephants because they might interfere with your farming, etc., I wouldn't expect to see their tusks removed. I would imagine that hunters (who have already been issued permits to kill 60 elephants so far, see https://www.reuters.com/article/us-botswana-elep…
Slightly off topic, but It was interesting talking about elephants with my wife from India, she does not have the same warm fuzzy feelings I do regarding elephants as her main memory of them was her father guarding his field against wild elephants
Re: Botswana: Lab tests to solve mystery of hundreds of dead elephants
#18hopefully it isn't COVID related. Maybe botulism especially if the corpses are not being actively consumed by scvangers.
Re: Botswana: Lab tests to solve mystery of hundreds of dead elephants
#19The number of mass animal deaths seems to be greatly increasing in over the last two decades: - Half of all Saiga antelopes (120k) died over a month, 2015 [1] - Recent unexplained dog deaths in Norway, 2019 [2] - The ongoing white nose syndrome epidemic that's ravaging bat populations in North America [3] - Gray whales beaching themselves all along US West Coast, 2019 [4] - Ongoing, mass die-off of about 30% of frog…
The environment has not changed much at all in the past two decades. You spuriously quote a few random cases of sudden death and claim it has been on the uptick but lack the holistic data of the past few hundred years to determine whether that's a true statement or not. The beached whale could be caused by shifts in Earth's geomagnetic field, which whales use to navigate: https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/weakening-earths-ma…
Holistic data across the entire animal kingdom is difficult to come by, but everywhere we look we're finding hints that there are serious issues. On just insects:
> A reanalysis published in 2017 suggested that, in 1989–2016, there had been a "seasonal decline of 76%, and mid-summer decline of 82%, in flying insect biomass over the 27 years of study". The decline was "apparent regardless of habitat type" and could not be explained by "changes in weather, land use, and habitat characteristics". The authors suggested that not only butterflies, moths and wild bees appear to be in decline, as previous studies indicated, but "the flying insect community as a whole"
That's not a small, random decline - 70-80% of insect mass has disappeared over a single generation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_in_insect_populations#...
Re: Botswana: Lab tests to solve mystery of hundreds of dead elephants
#20The number of mass animal deaths seems to be greatly increasing in over the last two decades: - Half of all Saiga antelopes (120k) died over a month, 2015 [1] - Recent unexplained dog deaths in Norway, 2019 [2] - The ongoing white nose syndrome epidemic that's ravaging bat populations in North America [3] - Gray whales beaching themselves all along US West Coast, 2019 [4] - Ongoing, mass die-off of about 30% of frog…
We look for villains but the real problem is simply humans in general. We do so much damage to the world. Plastic, greenhouse gases, overfishing, etc. to support our way of life. Lots of other examples...We kill millions of birds with our pets, buildings, and green energy We need to find a way to reduce our impact on the planet.
"green energy" if you're insinuating that wind power kills birds, that's something you can totally stop worrying about.
A single turbine kills as many birds as a cat per year.