Regional and world trends in donkey populations

[Pages:12]This paper is published in: Starkey P and Fielding D (eds), Donkeys, people and development. A resource book of the Animal Traction Network for Eastern and Southern Africa (ATNESA). ACP-EU Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), Wageningen, The Netherlands. 244p. ISBN 92-9081-219-2. This publication was supported by CTA and Neda, The Netherlands.

For details of ATNESA and its resource publications see

RPaeuglioSntalrkaenydawnodrMldatlrceonldms iSntadroknekyey populations

Regional and world trends in donkey populations

by

Paul Starkey 1 and Malcolm Starkey 2

1 Animal Traction Development and University of Reading Oxgate, 64 Northcourt Avenue, Reading RG2 7HQ, UK

2 Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EN, UK

Abstract

Maps, tables and graphs are presented to illustrate trends in donkey populations in the world, with emphasis on Africa, Asia and Latin America. Most data derive from information collated and published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Although national estimates of donkey populations are seldom accurate, they illustrate broad trends. There are estimated to be 44 million donkeys in the world, almost all of which are maintained for work. China has the highest population (eleven million) followed by Ethiopia (five million). For the past thirty years (and more) there has been a gradual but consistent growth in donkey numbers. The main areas of increase have been in sub-Saharan Africa, the north of the Indian subcontinent and the tropical highlands of Latin America. This has more than offset the decline in the Mediterranean region. In the past thirty years there has been a three-fold increase in the Sahelian zone of West Africa. Rapid increases have also been seen in some southern African states. Major declines in donkey populations have been reported in Turkey and southern Europe. The paper discusses the regional trends. The stability of donkey populations in countries that are rapidly urbanising and industrialising is noted. It is suggested that donkeys will continue to be important in such countries while they have large rural sectors without access to affordable motor power. The data, combined with personal observations, point to continuing expansion of donkey numbers into the twenty-first century, with the largest growth in sub-Saharan Africa.

Introduction

The great majority of donkeys in the world (probably over 95%) are kept specifically for work. Their most common role is for transport, whether riding, pack transport or pulling carts. They may also be used for farm tillage. In certain countries they may assist threshing, raising water, milling or other operations. The systems for

owning and working animals vary from country to country. In most countries, donkeys can be owned and used by either men or women. Children are frequently given responsibility for working with donkeys.

Although donkeys can be milked, this is not common. In a few countries (including Italy) donkeys may be prized for their meat. In certain societies, large numbers of animals (including donkeys) may be kept as indicators of wealth and status. Some countries have small populations of feral donkeys. In some industrialised countries, donkeys are kept specifically for recreation, breeding, showing or companionship. Some farmers keep donkeys for guarding sheep. However, from a world-wide perspective, the numbers involved in these specialised applications are very small.

Since donkeys are seldom owned and maintained unless they are worked, estimates of national and regional donkey populations provide useful indicators of donkey work world wide. Overall population figures cannot provide information on the frequency of donkey use, nor the life-span of donkeys. However, changes in populations, interpreted with knowledge of the prevailing systems of utilisation, can provide valuable information on the existing situation and probable trends.

Methodology and data reliability

For the past fifty years, FAO has been publishing Annual Production Yearbooks (FAO, 1949 to FAO, 1994) containing many statistics including estimates of donkey (ass) populations in different countries and regions. These data are also available on the Internet at the FAO website (FAO, 1997). This website has a user-friendly interface and data from 1961, which can be readily accessed and downloaded. Most of the data cited in this paper are derived from these sources.

10

Note: This version of the paper has been specially prepared for the ATNESA website. It may not be identical to the paper appearing in the resource book

Donkeys, people and development

This paper is published in: Starkey P and Fielding D (eds), Donkeys, people and development. A resource book of the Animal Traction Network for Eastern and Southern Africa (ATNESA). ACP-EU Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), Wageningen, The Netherlands. 244p. ISBN 92-9081-219-2. This publication was supported by CTA and Neda, The Netherlands.

For details of ATNESA and its resource publications see

Regional and world trends in donkey populations

The figures quoted here are of differing accuracy, and should be interpreted with caution. Data published by FAO are provided in good faith, but are not necessarily accurate nor authoritative. Most of the data collated by FAO are based on estimates submitted by national agricultural ministries. However, not all national ministries maintain accurate estimates of donkey populations. Indeed, estimating donkey populations is a very difficult task since donkey ownership is seldom registered. Substantial donkey populations occur in remote rural areas where it is difficult or impractical to survey them accurately.

Data collection methods vary from country to country and often from year to year in the same country. If local estimates are based on questionnaires rather than physical sightings, the figures may reflect subjective judgements (for example, people may not be proud to report the presence of large numbers of donkeys). Some countries (such as Kenya) have not been submitting estimates for donkey populations. For others (such as South Africa) the same figure has been repeated for more than a decade. In some cases where figures were unavailable or particularly questionable, FAO has made its own estimates.

FAO has not published donkey population estimates for all countries for all years. In cases where data were missing for only a few years, the missing figures were interpolated using a linear approximation. In other cases, the present authors have provided `guesstimates' based on personal experience, information on donkey populations in neighbouring countries and knowledge of the agricultural and transport systems in the countries concerned. In the majority of these cases the populations are likely to be very small or nonexistent (for example in Gabon and Liberia). However, two important donkey populations had to be estimated by the authors. For Kenya, an estimate of 300,000 donkeys in 1996 was made based on an earlier figure of 215,000 (from the 1930s), discussions with Kenyan colleagues and the authors' personal experience. For Eritrea, a 1996 estimate was made on the assumption that the ratio of the donkey populations of Eritrea and Ethiopia had not changed greatly since 1949, when estimates for both territories were last published. Thus, using round figures, 150,000 donkeys included in the Ethiopian estimate were tentatively ascribed to Eritrea.

In many cases, the published FAO information does not agree with certain local estimates. For consistency, the FAO data (however questionable) have been used in the tables and figures. Some noteworthy examples of discrepancy are highlighted in the text. In many countries, particularly in Africa, the FAO figures appear to be underestimates. This suggests the overall regional and world populations could be higher than those quoted here. However, most national figures are thoroughly overshadowed by the estimates of those countries with very large donkey populations. China, Ethiopia, Mexico and Pakistan together account for about half of the donkeys in the world. Thus the reliability of regional and global totals depends to a large extent on the accuracy of a few dominating statistics.

For many countries, the donkey population figures span fifty years, with a few estimates going back more than sixty years. Figures on the website (FAO, 1997) are a complete series starting in 1961, but these are not necessarily compatible with previous published estimates. Most information in the graphs, tables and maps derives from the FAO website. Figures from before 1961 quoted in the text are derived from the published yearbooks. As the earlier data are incomplete, reference dates and time spans are not the same for all countries. The information presented is based on present national names and boundaries. Records for previous years have been assigned to present states even though the name of the territory may have differed.

In the regional maps, country outlines have been shaded to give a visual impression of donkey populations. These maps are helpful but have limitations. The shading is indicative only: the colour scale is not directly proportional to the estimated population. The shading within any country is constant, even though the distribution of donkeys within countries is seldom uniform.

With the limitations of the original data and the presentation fully recognised, the following maps and indicative figures should provide useful indications of present donkey populations and their geographical distribution, as well as the trends in these that are apparent.

World trends

The earliest available FAO figure for the world donkey population is from 1961 when there were an estimated 37 million donkeys. Since then, the world donkey population has increased steadily. It is now about 44 million (Figure 1).

Donkeys, people and development

Note: This version of the paper has been specially prepared for the ATNESA website. It may not be identical to the paper appearing in the resource book

11

This paper is published in: Starkey P and Fielding D (eds), Donkeys, people and development. A resource book of the Animal Traction Network for Eastern and Southern Africa (ATNESA). ACP-EU Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), Wageningen, The Netherlands. 244p. ISBN 92-9081-219-2. This publication was supported by CTA and Neda, The Netherlands.

For details of ATNESA and its resource publications see

Paul Starkey and Malcolm Starkey

Number of donkeys (millions)

Figure 1: Estimates of the world donkey population 1961?1996 (Source: after FAO 1997).

The donkey population is not evenly distributed around the world with most donkeys occurring in semi-arid and mountainous areas. Whilst the world donkey population has shown a consistently increasing trend, there have been large regional differences, with significant regional increases and decreases.

Africa

Map 1 illustrates present estimates of donkey populations in African nations and Table 1 gives estimates over the last 30 years. The total African donkey population has increased by 60% in the last fifty years, from 8.5 million in 1949 to 13.7 million in 1996 (Figure 2). However, the population changes have not taken place evenly over the continent. Most of the increase has been in the semi-arid areas of the continent, notably in Sahelian West Africa, Ethiopia and Egypt.

In Sahelian countries (Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, The Gambia and Tchad) the number of donkeys has nearly tripled from 0.9 million in 1949, to 2.3 million in 1996 (Figure 3). Estimates of the donkey population of Senegal and The Gambia increased more than tenfold from 1949 to 1996. The donkey population in Nigeria is large, but estimates have fluctuated markedly.

Estimates of the small populations of donkeys in the semi-humid and humid regions of West Africa (Benin, Cameroon, C?te d'Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Togo etc) seem fairly constant. Field observations suggest that many of these estimates will be revised upwards in the coming years. The donkey populations in the drier regions of all these countries appear to be increasing in size and expanding in geographical area. The delay in reporting these increases is partly due to the low absolute numbers and the localised nature of the increases. It is also affected by the low visibility of the changes (offices that compile statistics in these countries are based in zones where donkeys are seldom seen). The estimate for Guinea Conakry of just 1400 donkeys seems particularly low.

In North Africa there has also been a mixture of trends. In Egypt and Tunisia, donkey populations have been steadily increasing. In 1949 Egypt was estimated to have had nine million donkeys, while in 1996 the estimate was 1.7 million. In Morocco, Libya and Algeria donkey populations initially increased from 1949 levels but all are now declining. Taking all the circum-Saharan countries (combining North Africa and the Sahelian states), the population of donkeys has increased from

Figure 2: Estimates of the donkey population of Africa, 1961?1996 (Source: after FAO, 1997).

Number of

donkeys (millions)

12

Note: This version of the paper has been specially prepared for the ATNESA website. It may not be identical to the paper appearing in the resource book

Donkeys, people and development

This paper is published in: Starkey P and Fielding D (eds), Donkeys, people and development. A resource book of the Animal Traction Network for Eastern and Southern Africa (ATNESA). ACP-EU Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), Wageningen, The Netherlands. 244p. ISBN 92-9081-219-2. This publication was supported by CTA and Neda, The Netherlands.

For details of ATNESA and its resource publications see

880

230 1

230 55

155

368 30

5

1

611 450 252

455

13 13 1 1000

3

36

Regional and world trends in donkey populations

5 19

1690

97

26

150

500

678

5000

24

17 300

Key: number of donkeys >2 million 1?2 million 0.5 ? 1 million 100 000?500 000 10 000?100 000 2 million 1?2 million 0.5 ? 1 million 100 000?500 000 10 000?100 000 ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download