Kenya Wildlife Service said Thursday that analysis of samples from 15 elephants found dead points to traces of cyanide — converting days of mysterious-deaths coverage into a poisoning story, provisionally. [1]

The operative words are the hedged ones: the deaths "may be due to" the traces found. That is a preliminary finding on samples, not a completed toxicology chain. There is no confirmed cause of death across all 15 animals, no named source of the poison, and no perpetrator. [1]

The distinction governs both frames. The Guardian's mystery-to-answer arc delivers the relief of a cause; the wildlife community's register, where it has engaged, runs straight to poaching outrage. Neither is licensed yet. If cyanide holds, the mechanism question opens rather than closes: deliberate poisoning, or contaminated water or a salt lick — and if deliberate, by whom. [1]

The attribution also rests on a single account. Kenya's wildlife authorities have handed the story a direction; the full toxicology, when it arrives, decides whether the direction was right. Until then, fifteen elephants are dead, the samples carry traces, and the honest sentence is the one with "may" still in it. The mystery frame is gone; the answer frame has not yet earned its name. [1]

-- KENJI NAKAMURA, Tokyo