At least 50 hippos found poisoned at Africa's oldest national park

Yahoo

08-04-2025

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(WJW) – At least 50 hippos and other large animals were found dead due to anthrax poisoning in eastern Congo's Virunga National Park.
According to Reuters, Virunga National Park Director Emmanuel De Merode said hippos and other animals such as buffalo have been spotted floating along a major river that feeds one of Africa's great lakes, Lake Edward.
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De Merode told Reuters that tests confirmed the anthrax poisoning in the animals, but it is not yet clear what caused the poisoning.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, anthrax is a disease that is usually caused by Bacillus anthracis bacteria. That bacterium is found naturally in soil around the world.
According to the CDC, anthrax commonly affects livestock and wild animals. Animals can become infected when they breathe in, eat or drink spores in contaminated soil, plants or water.
According to the Virunga National Park website, the park recorded the largest number of hippos in the world in the 1970s. There were 29,000 individual hippos recorded in and around Lake Edward.
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'Since then, instability in the region has led to increased poaching and a 95% decline in the size of the population,' the website states.
According to the website, a terrestrial census organized in August 2019 assessed the park's hippo population at about 1,500.
According to Reuters, park guards noticed there was a problem when the dead animals started to appear about five days ago along the river, which forms Congo's border with Uganda and runs through an area under the control of rebel fighters.
De Merode said that a team was on site and that they were trying to get the hippos out of the water and bury them, but that it was difficult because they did not have excavators.
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Images shared by the park show the hippopotamuses motionless on their sides and backs in the Ishasha River, or caught among foliage on the river's muddy banks.
According to Reuters, the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation has warned residents to avoid wildlife in the area and to boil water from local sources before drinking.
The river runs north to Lake Edward, where locals spotted more corpses.
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