The Virunga National Park, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is the oldest in Africa, founded in 1925; Among other things, it houses one of the last two populations of mountain gorilla, as well as elephants, chimpanzees, giraffes, leopards and hippos. And precisely the latter, already numerically in decline due to poaching, are crossing another period of serious crisis: as announced by the park itself and first reported by Reutersat least 50 specimens died due to Antrace’s poisoning.
The hippos of the Virunga. The hippos of the Virunga National Park are concentrated in particular around Lake Edward, one of the largest in Africa. Once upon a time their population touched the 20,000 specimens, which in 2006, due to poaching and civil war, had dropped a few hundred.
The park’s conservation efforts have made these numbers rise in the last twenty years, and today it is estimated that around 1,200 hippos live in Virunga. At the beginning of April, however, an increasing number of dead specimens were observed floating in the waters of the lake and the Ishasha river: it is estimated that the corpses are at least 50, but the numbers could grow now that the cause of the massacre has been identified.
The massacre of the anthrax. The fault lies withanthraxor carbunclean infection that can only affect the skin or even hit the lungs, and which is caused by the bacterium Bacillus Anthracis. With a lethality of 20% and beyond, it is a very dangerous disease, which also affects man but reaps victims especially among herbivores (wild and domestic). The analyzes of the corporeal corpses of the Virunga of the Virunga have identified the Antrace as the cause of death.
The biggest problem of the anthrace is that the bacterium that the cause can also survive for years in the ground, before being inhaled or infecting an animal going from a skin wound. That’s why the park authorities are working to limit the spread of the disease, recovering the corpses of the hippos and burying them with caustic soda, so as to eliminate all traces of the bacterium. Local populations have also been warned: the anthrax can also pass to humans, and the park recommends boiling the water before using it, and not to consume game.
