Petition: 15 Elephants Died in One Month. Cyanide Was in Their Systems. Nobody Agrees Where It Came From.

Between June 24 and July 24, 2026, fifteen elephants died in the Amboseli ecosystem in Kajiado County, Kenya. Ten showed partial paralysis and died within two days; five were found already dead and partly taken by scavengers. They were adult females, their calves, and one male. On July 29 the Kenya Wildlife Service announced that preliminary laboratory analysis had detected traces of cyanide in their digestive systems. Amboseli holds more than 1,600 elephants and is one of the best-protected populations in Africa. What nobody yet agrees on is where the cyanide came from. Please sign the petition calling for a full and independent investigation.

✍  Sign the Petition

KWS pointed to pesticides sprayed on tomato farms around Kimana Sanctuary and Kuku Group Ranch, noting that one dead elephant’s stomach contained a large quantity of tomatoes. That explanation is being challenged from several directions at once, and the challenges are not frivolous. Farmers in Kimana say cyanide is not present in the pesticides they use; one who has farmed the edge of Amboseli for two decades told the Associated Press he has never heard of farmers poisoning wildlife there. Conservationists have pointed out that elephants would have needed to eat enormous quantities of contaminated fruit, and that other wildlife sharing the same habitat was unaffected. Analyses by Kenya’s Government Chemist reportedly came back negative for the toxins tested, with further testing under way. The Kajiado County government has disputed the death toll, declared a One Health emergency and demanded an independent probe. The Kenya Veterinary Association has asked for a multi-agency investigation and raised a further question: if cyanide really is in the tomatoes, what does that mean for the people eating them. Deliberate poisoning has not been ruled out, and there are unverified claims circulating that the source could be illegal gold mining, where cyanide is standard.

This is why the petition asks for an investigation rather than a prosecution, and why that is the right ask. There is a grim precedent for the alternative reading: in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park, poachers have repeatedly poisoned waterholes and salt licks with cyanide, killing more than 200 elephants in 2013 and dozens more in later incidents, because cyanide is widely used in mining and easy to obtain. Whatever happened at Amboseli, the underlying pressure is not in dispute. KWS director general Erustus Kanga put it plainly: Kenya had around 10 million people at independence and has more than 55 million now, on the same amount of land, and the conversion of wildlife corridors to farming and settlement has taken a toll. Kenya rebuilt its elephant population from historic lows to more than 36,000 by cutting poaching. Losing fifteen in a month to something nobody can identify is a different kind of failure, and it will keep happening wherever farms and elephants are pushed into the same ground. One Green Planet has covered how human-wildlife conflict threatens elephants, and the case is reported by the Washington Post.

✍  Sign the Petition Now

Sign These Urgent Petitions!

• Petition: The World’s First Octopus Farm Was Scrapped in July. Nothing in Law Stops the Next One.
• Petition: An Expert Counted 600 Acts of Cruelty at This Award-Winning Farm. Tesco Was Selling Its Milk.
• Petition: Every Red Wolf Alive Descends From 14 Animals. This Year, Four Litters Were Born.