Mysterious elephant deaths in Kenya raise questions around pesticides

ByThomas Mukhwana

Africa correspondent, Reporting fromAmboseli

News that the recent deaths of 15 elephants may have been caused by pesticides sprayed on tomato crops surrounding Amboseli National Park has raised concerns and questions in Kenya.

Last week, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said that some of the elephants that had died between 24 June and 24 July had shown signs of "partial paralysis" that pointed to poisoning from cyanide used in pesticides.

But conservationists have told the BBC that, perhaps, is not the full story. Farmers we have spoken to in the area were also sceptical.

"We have stayed with this wildlife for decades and have never experienced this," Daniel Nina, who represents some of the landowners in the area, told the BBC.

"So that's why we are wondering why it is happening today."

The tomato farms are found in the Kimana area, which is part of a corridor between Amboseli National Park and the Tsavo National Park in the south of Kenya.

It is a vast area known as the Amboseli ecosystem, which straddles the border near Tanzania where more than 2,000 elephants move along in search of food and water.

These farms thrive thanks to the streams from nearby Mount Kilimanjaro and supply markets in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, and beyond.

The chief vet of Kenya's Wildlife Service, Dr Isaac Lekolool, told us that they had found traces of cyanide in samples taken from the elephants' stomachs.

He says that they are not ruling out deliberate poisoning but it's impossible at this stage to tell what could have killed the elephants.

"It's difficult to tell because we've not seen these kind of cases before. It is almost like a one-off, and it was within a period of about a month," Lekolool said.

Their working theory is that the elephants were exposed to the toxin through pesticides sprayed on nearby tomato farms.

"It could be unintentional. Maybe people are trying to do some controls of pests on their crops, and that could have been maybe a source."

A 2024 report by Kenyan food safety initiative Route to Food found a farmer in Kimana area using an insecticide that had an "active ingredient" that was "a chemical compound of cyanide".

Wangunyu Njuguna, the author of the report, said that despite being illegal in Kenya, some toxic agrochemicals are smuggled through the border with Tanzania.

"The biggest problem is we're not enforcing similar standards in the region," Njuguna said. "There is no-one checking what I go and buy across the border, so I can just go buy anything and walk through the border and no-one stops me."

Highly hazardous substances are common on Kenyan farms and some have been linked to serious diseases.

While regulations against illegal agrochemicals exist, there's weak enforcement and little attention paid to how they can affect animals.

However, we have spoken to several wildlife conservationists who have questioned the initial findings of Kenya's Wildlife Service.

Paula Kahumbu is a world-renowned conservationist who has worked with elephants for nearly 30 years. "We haven't got enough detailed information to have confidence in this claim that it's due to pesticides in crops," Kahumbu said.

"Some information has been released to the public but it's not adding up. Those elephants have to eat a huge amount to kill them."

Other experts who did not want to be named said the pesticide theory was inconsistent with elephant behaviour. They said that males are more likely to raid farms as they usually take more risks than females and calves. However, only one of the 15 elephants affected was an adult male.

Nina, the landowners' representative, added that unlike the latest incident, previous cases of poisoning in farms had affected zebras and antelopes, which raid the same areas.

"How does cyanide kill the elephants and leave behind the zebras, antelopes and wildebeests, which are eating the grass together?" Nina asked.

Human-wildlife conflict has persisted for decades in communities near conservation areas across Kenya.

Stephen Michael, a tomato farmer in Kimana, says elephants and giraffes occasionally raid farms in the area. "Elephants come from time to time from Tsavo and Amboseli. They destroy many farms, not just mine," Michael said.

"The last time elephants came, they destroyed cabbages and tomatoes. I lost cabbages worth almost $1,535. That doesn't include tomatoes. I might start crying if I count that."

Frank Pope, CEO of conservation organisation Save the Elephants, told the BBC the pressure on Amboseli's elephants isn't ivory anymore.

"It's land use," he said.

Farms and lodges are increasingly taking up land around the park which was previously used by elephants. It is such activities that Pope says worsen the conflict with wildlife.

"People are moving into areas where there's enough water to grow crops, and fertile soils, and those are the very areas that the elephants tend to use as well."

Nobody knows for sure what's causing the elephant deaths now. The fear is that the remaining elephants and the people who live near them could still be at risk.