The staggering and unexplained deaths of over 300 African elephants in early 2020 — one of the largest mass mortality events of wild mammals in recent history — was most likely due to toxins in water that proliferated due to climate extremes, according to a fresh analysis of a decade's worth of satellite data.
The mass death, a "conservation disaster" that occurred over the course of three months in Botswana's Okavango Delta, saw some elephant carcasses clustered around waterholes and others collapsed face-first on the ground. While the region is a known poaching hotspot, the tusks of the elephants were found intact, ruling out human interference and prompting scientists to look for other causes.
