Officials said they lacked money to properly bury all the hippo carcasses now scattered about the Queen Elizabeth National Park and needed help to do so and to vaccinate all animals in the area to prevent the spread of anthrax.

The bodies of at least nine of the 37 dead hippos are still rotting above ground on the grounds of the park, which is home to half of Uganda's about 10,000 hippopotami, according to Nicholas Kauta, chairman of the country's anthrax task force.

"The best we can do is to remove the pollutants that are the dead hippos and also vaccinate other animals in the area," Kauta said.

Last year, anthrax killed at least 200 hippos in the park and a program to bury the dead, vaccinate animals in the area and raise awareness of the potentially fatal disease cost some 120,000 dollars (93,000 euros), he said.

Only cattle and sheep are vaccinated against anthrax because hippos are notoriously difficult and dangerous to inoculate given their size, behavior when threatened and tendency to spend most of their time submerged.

Kauta added that this year's hippo death toll may be higher than 37 because of the size of the area that government anthrax teams are monitoring: two lakes -- Lake Edward and Lake George -- and the Kazinga Channel that joins them.

Anthrax occurs when animals eat remnants of vegetation in the driest months of September and October, absorbing bacterial spores that can live for decades in dry soil.

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