Tamar Kahn
18 November 2008
Cape Town — SANParks is spearheading a new multi- disciplinary team of scientists to get to the bottom of the deaths of hundreds of crocodiles in the Kruger National Park's Olifants River this year.
The deaths were a symptom of a "serious and growing environmental problem" in the Olifants River system, but experts were still baffled as to what had triggered the sudden deaths, Kruger's head of scientific services Danie Pienaar said.
"We suspected that the ongoing pollution of the system would eventually result in some kind of ecological disaster, but the large number of crocodile deaths caught us by surprise."
Scientists estimate that since May more than 300 crocodiles have died around the Olifants River gorge, in a region that hosts a population of between 1000 and 2000 crocodiles.
"A top predator collapse indicates prolonged ecosystem stress, caused by human activities," Pienaar said , conceding that the systems for controlling and monitoring environmental damage were inadequate.
"If the situation continues to deteriorate, this could have implications for human health too," he said , noting that communities living in the Olifants River catchment area used untreated river water for drinking and washing.
The new initiative, called the Consortium for the Restoration of the Olifants Catchment , includes experts from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research , universities, the water affairs and forestry and environmental affairs and tourism departments , the Water Research Commission and independent consultants.
Scientists will investigate the effect of pollution from industrial, mining and agricultural sources, monitor crocodile populations with tracking devices, and study how bulk water infrastructure such as Mozambique's Massingir Dam has affected the river's health, Pienaar said. The Massingir Dam recently raised its wall, causing water to back up and deposit fine sediment into the Olifants River gorge.
Experts had found no evidence that the crocodiles were directly poisoned by pesticides or heavy metals, said Pienaar.
Postmortem analysis found they died from pansteatitis, a disease that gradually renders the animals immobile.
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