"We have sent experts to get samples from the carcasses and live ones to investigate the cause of these strange deaths," the Uganda Wildlife Authority's executive director Arthur Mugisha told AFP by telephone.

He said the team includes veterinary doctors and officials from the agriculture ministry, adding that an EU-supported disease control programme was already on the ground to study the suspected soil-borne disease.

Mugisha said the deaths began late last month, when game officials found five dead hippos one day and three the next, which he said "was out of the ordinary."

He said the sampling would take nearly a week, followed by several days of diagnosis and analysis in the capital Kampala.

More than 10,000 flamingos died in a park in northern Tanzania in June and July, also from an unknown disease.

TERRA.WIRE