An outbreak of anthrax has killed dozens of hippopotamuses in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s renowned Virunga National Park, worsening an ecological crisis driven by drought and armed rebellion.
Al Jazeera reported that wildlife authorities in Africa's oldest national park have discovered scores of carcasses floating along the park’s waterways in recent weeks. The bacterial infection, caused by Bacillus anthracis, poses an immediate threat to what was once the continent's largest population of the megaherbivores.
Deadly pathogen surfaces in receding waters
Anthrax spores naturally lie dormant in soil for decades, but severe climatic shifts in eastern DR Congo have heightened the peril. Extended dry conditions across the region have forced river levels down sharply, drawing wildlife to concentrated mud pools and exposing them to the lethal bacteria buried in riverbed sediment.
Conservation specialists warn that as herbivores ingest spores while grazing close to parched mud flats, mortality rates can surge rapidly. Park personnel have reportedly moved to burn or bury the remains of dead hippos to prevent scavengers and downstream communities from contracting the disease, though logistical hurdles across the vast terrain remain severe.
Militia violence cripples conservation
The veterinary emergency comes at a disastrous time for Virunga, located in the country's turbulent North Kivu province. The region has been engulfed in violence for decades, with armed rebel factions—including the M23 movement and the Allied Democratic Forces—waging turf wars across wildlife corridors.
Al Jazeera reported that the presence of well-armed insurgent groups has severely restricted the ability of park wardens and veterinary teams to patrol infected zones safely. Large tracts of the park, which spans more than 7,800 square kilometres, remain highly dangerous or wholly inaccessible to ecological staff, allowing the disease to spread unchecked among vulnerable animal populations.
Park rangers, who are frequently targeted in deadly ambushes by rebel groups and illegal poachers, must now navigate both military hostilities and biohazard disposal protocols. Over the past three decades, more than 200 rangers have lost their lives defending Virunga's borders.
Precarious sanctuary under mounting strain
The loss of dozens of hippos deals a bitter blow to the park’s fragile ecosystem. Mid-20th-century surveys estimated Virunga’s hippo population at nearly 30,000, but relentless poaching during successive civil wars decimated herds to just a few hundred by the mid-2000s.
While painstaking conservation programmes over the past decade had nurtured numbers back toward several thousand, the dual pressures of pathogen outbreaks and armed insecurity threaten to wipe out those hard-won gains. Hippos play a crucial ecological role in fertilising the park's lakes and rivers, supporting fisheries that sustain hundreds of thousands of local residents.
International conservation bodies have voiced deep alarm, noting that without sustained funding and demilitarised access corridors, the cascading impact of the outbreak could permanently scar one of the world's most biodiverse natural reserves.