Croc deaths: Pollution blamed

2008-11-17 13:46

Johannesburg - South Africa's leading researchers, scientists, conservationists and wildlife pathologists have united to save crocodiles after a massive die-off in the Kruger National Park's Olifants gorge, SANParks said on Monday.

Head of the department for scientific services at the Kruger National Park Danie Pienaar said that the initiative, known as the Consortium for the Restoration of the Olifants Catchment, was dedicated to answering questions surrounding the deaths of over 160 crocodiles and the growing environmental problem in the Olifants River system.

"The river has been used and abused for the past five decades, and pollution is getting progressively worse," said aquatic ecologist Peter Ashton of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research.

The river had been subjected to prolonged and cumulative ecosystem stress as a result of human activities in the catchment.

"We suspected that the ongoing pollution of the Olifants River system would eventually result in some kind of ecological disaster. The large number of crocodile mortalities, however, caught us by surprise," said Pienaar.

While clues were increasingly pointing to pollution from industrial, mining and agricultural sources, the exact trigger that started the process of crocodile deaths remained elusive.

Post-mortem results showed that the crocodiles died of pansteatitis, a disease which results in the general hardening of the body fat, mostly as a result of inadequate antioxidant levels.

"One of the important outcomes of this programme will be to put in place a rapid response management mechanism should something of this nature ever happen again," said Pienaar.

- SAPA