Alarm over dwindling number of donkeys
By Alvin.Mwangi, January 30, 2023A lobby group has warned that Kenya may not have a single donkey by 2024 if the current slaughter rate continues.
Brooke East Africa, a group that deals with donkey rights, said that slaughter of the animal has increased despite the government closing abattoirs.
“ Our donkeys are being slaughtered daily. This thing is happening in silence and no one seems to care. We are urging our government to take charge and protect this animal. It supports millions of hustlers,” said Brooke East Africa’s regional director, Raphael Kinoti.
“Donkeys in Kenya are kept for work and not for slaughter; if we slaughter donkeys for their skins, livelihoods are lost,” he added.
In three years, that is, 2016–18, the four donkey abattoirs slaughtered 301,977 donkeys, which at the time represented 15.4 percent of the country’s donkey population, according to the 2019 Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization report, The Status of Donkey Slaughter for Skin Trade and Its Implications on the Kenyan Economy.
In its report, KALRO further projected that Kenya would be slaughtering the last of her donkey species this year if the slaughter continued, down from 1,965,632 donkeys as of 2016, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock. According to Kinoti, there is a need for the government to put up a policy that will speak for African donkeys.
“The incoming government is a hustler government, as donkeys help lots of hustlers, and slaughtering them for skins only subjects the donkey-owning hustler to abject poverty,” Dr.Kinoti added.