Genghis Khan was 11 years old and was in agony for days.
Veterinarians from the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and the Kenya Wildlife Service injected him with glucose to try to save him, but he died before the week was over. His eyes were bloodshot, he was breathing with difficulty, and he could no longer stand, the same symptoms that had afflicted 19 other elephants since late June in the Amboseli region, in southern Kenya.
The authorities found cyanide in the carcasses and pointed to poisoning by pesticides from nearby crops. But Patrick Papatiti, head of operations for the Olgulului community lands, does not believe it: he says cyanide is not used in the area and that, if there were mass poisoning, the hyenas and vultures that feed on the bodies would also be dying. That has not happened.
Papatiti suspects something worse: that the real death toll is being underestimated and that the illness has already crossed the border into Tanzania. While the government defends its hypothesis, no one has confirmed whether it is a virus, a bacterium, or a toxin. The elephants continue to die, and the answers do not come.
