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Kenya says 15 elephants died of cyanide poisoning after eating tomatoes from nearby farms

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Fifteen elephants that died over the past month in southern Kenya are suspected to have been poisoned by tomatoes contaminated by cyanide, wildlife authorities told local media Wednesday.

Authorities did not say who they suspected in the contamination of tomatoes from farms neighboring the Amboseli National Park. In the past farmers have been suspected of deliberately poisoning elephants to prevent them from eating crops.

The park in southern Kenya borders an area where farming and the raising of livestock are prevalent.

Kenya Wildlife Service Director General Erustus Kanga said preliminary laboratory tests detected cyanide. “Cyanide is a highly toxic chemical, particularly for elephants,” Kanga told local media.

The Kenya Wildlife Service warned that the contamination could have wider consequences because livestock also graze in the area.

“Other than the elephants and the wildlife that may be feeding in those fields, we have the local livestock. We have the goats. We have the cattle that are there. Eventually, if this is truly what is in the system, then we are going to see a bigger impact,” Kanga said.

Wildlife authorities said the toxic substances found in the deceased elephants pose no immediate threat to human health.

The Mediterranean’s warming waters are drawing hundreds of invasive species

ROME (AP) — The Mediterranean of our ancestors is no more. Scientists say climate change, caused mainly by burning oil, coal and gas, is making the Mediterranean Sea hotter, bringing hundreds of new and invasive fish species that decimate indigenous populations. As biodiversity diminishes, coastal communities will struggle to make ends meet in the ways they’ve known for generations. “The Mediterranean of our grandfathers, of our elders, and of the Greeks, of ancient Greece is lost forever. So many of those changes are irreversible,” said Ernesto Azzuro, a marine biologist with the Italian National Research Council's Institute for Marine Biological Resources and Biotechnology.
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