'Glow in the dark donkey' project launched
SPANA, the Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad has teamed up with the Maun Animal Welfare Society (MAWS) in Botswana to make donkeys glow in the dark.
The project involves fitting the country's donkeys with reflective ear tags to improve their visibility to night-time road users.
"The people who own working donkeys are some of the poorest in Botswana's society," says Laura Higham, SPANA's outreach veterinary advisor. "[They] often have no choice other than to let their animals roam freely in search of food in the sparse desert environment. This practice is essential, but obviously makes the donkeys vulnerable to accidents, and we hope this simple solution will help reduce the number of collisions every year."
It is estimated that approximately 330,000 donkeys live in Botswana, and official figures report that 10% of road traffic accidents in the country involve night-time collisions with animals. This is a danger not only for the donkeys who become injured or killed, but also night-time drivers. Furthermore owners who lose their donkeys often then have no source of income.
MAWS Chairman Ally Lamb says: "In northern Botswana there's one donkey for every two people, and our welfare efforts for donkeys have been limited to humanely euthanising those that have been injured in road traffic accidents to prevent further suffering. Thanks to SPANA funding this tagging project, we hope to prevent these accidents happening all together."
So far the charity and its volunteers in Botswana have tagged 500 of the animals and SPANA will be closely monitoring the impact this has on road traffic accidents. Higham says:
"We hope to demonstrate a clear impact from tagging these animals…this could be a really crucial project, not just for animal welfare, but in terms of the people depending on those animals."
If the project is successful it is hoped that tagging may be rolled out in other parts of Africa
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