People watch elephants at the re-opened Zoo Zurich, as Switzerland continues to ease the lockdown measures during the COVID-19 outbreak on Saturday. The Swiss government on Friday said it plans to lift travel and border restrictions from countries in the European Union, the European Free Trade Association, and the United Kingdom on June 15.
-reuters-
BANGKOK - Some 3,000 students gathered on Friday in Thailand's Ayutthaya province to send Valentine's Day well-wishes to China, which is facing an ongoing coronavirus epidemic.
"China keep fighting," students and teachers of Jirasat Wittaya School chanted, as they stood with a pair of elephants in a heart formation in a courtyard.
"Now in China the people are feeling anxious and worried, so people from other countries should give them confidence so they can press on," said Liang Jie, a Chinese language teacher at the school from the city of Xiamen, on China's east coast.
"So if the Thais can give us their confidence and support, we will surely be thankful to them."
Thailand has recorded a total of 33 coronavirus cases, but no fatalities so far.
In its latest update, China's National Health Commission said it had recorded 121 new deaths and 5,090 new coronavirus cases on the mainland on Thursday, raising the total of infected to 63,851 people.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
GABORONE, Botswana—More than 100 elephants have died in Botswana in the past 2 months partly because of a suspected anthrax outbreak, the government said Tuesday.
"Preliminary investigations suggest the elephants are dying from anthrax while some died from drought effects," the Department of Wildlife and National Parks said in a statement.
"Due to the severe drought, elephants end up ingesting soil while grazing and get exposed to the anthrax bacteria spore," it said.
Elephants Without Borders said an aerial survey showed fresh elephant carcasses increased by 593 percent between 2014 to 2018, mostly from poaching and illegal hunting, with drought also a contributing factor.
The wildlife authority said the latest deaths were in the Chobe River front and Nantanga areas in northern Botswana, where 14 dead elephants were found this week. It said it would be burning the carcasses to prevent the anthrax infection from spreading to other animals.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States, anthrax is a bacteria found naturally in soil and commonly affects domestic and wild animals when they breathe in or ingest spores in contaminated soil, plants, or water.
Anthrax is not contagious and humans can only get infected by ingesting the bacteria. It can be prevented in animals via regular vaccination.
Botswana is home to almost a third of Africa's elephants, around 130,000. Botswana has lifted a ban on big-game hunting to combat a growing conflict between humans and wildlife.
Botswana and its neighbors in southern Africa are experiencing a severe drought because of below-average rainfall since an El Niño weather system struck in 2015.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
