We’re busy making plans to help animals in Mongolia, where a dzud – an extremely cold and snowy winter – is killing about 250,000 animals a week.
Dzuds occur about once a decade, and temperatures can plummet to 47 degrees below freezing. This one is especially tough: the drought last summer meant people couldn’t collect enough fodder for their livestock, so the animals were already weak and malnourished when the snow came. There has been much more snow than usual, making it impossible for animals to find food under the ice and difficult for their owners to find alternative sources.
About 2.5 million animals have died so far, and, according to UN Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates, the livestock death toll could be 20 million by the time the dzud is over.
The Mongolian government did have a stockpile of feed, but it has run out. Livestock owners haven’t been able to sell their livestock for meat because the price fell too low and the snow cut off people living in isolated communities.
All of this has left people and animals unable to cope, so we’re working out a plan of action. Firstly, we need to ease the suffering. Our member society the Cambridge Mongolia Development Appeal (CAMDA) is there right now, meeting the authorities and monitoring fodder delivery. Secondly, we want to help the government work on risk reduction strategies, and raise awareness of them among Mongolian communities. We’ll keep you posted.
