From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May
2001:
The dogs of Bale, Ethiopia
by Efrem Legesse, with Zegeye Kibret
Bale Mountains National Park, P.O. Box 107, Bale Goba, Ethiopia
Bale Mountains National Park in Ethiopia, where I now work,
is a majestic landscape of unique flora and animals, home of the last
viable population of highly endangered Ethiopian wolves.
I was born and raised, in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital.
It was not as big then. I lived in a wooded district. A company made
trophy mounts of wild animals and birds nearby. My older friends hunted
birds for sale to this company. I learned to do the same.
When we were old enough to take regular jobs, I was hired by
the Ethiopia Wildlife, Conservation, & Parks department. Then I
learned that what we did was poaching.
Since then, I have worked in various Ethiopian national parks.
At first I was interested only in conservation as the source of my own
living. I believed that Ethiopians should protect our natural
resources, and hoped that wildlife could attract tourists, but I never
paid attention to animals other than wildlife.
After I began reading ANIMAL PEOPLE, my attitude changed. I
realized that every animal has a right to live, and that if an animal
must be killed, the killing must be done humanely.
I work with Zegeye Kibret, the education officer at Bale
National Park. ANIMAL PEOPLE has helped both of us to teach our community
about animal welfare. Park warden Hana Kifle, who has been educated in
wildlife conservation both in Ethiopia and abroad, assists us in any
possible way.
Zegeye frequently speaks to the students at six schools in the
nearby villages. He organizes writing and drawing contests, fundraising
raffles to buy trees for school nature clubs to plant, and Wolf Day, when
sporting events for primary school students are held, such as
footraces, horse races, and soccer and volleyball games. This year
will be the fourth Wolf Day.
We now have a crisis with a growing population of homeless
dogs. During the past month, assisted by Awel Adem of the park staff,
we have documented the problem with a series of interviews. I have also
mapped the locations of the dog packs, expressing, cartoon-style, what
I believe to be the dogs' own view of their plight.
The dog problem is caused by humans as well as dogs, especially
illegal settlers in the park, but the dogs take the brunt of the blame.
Bale Zone Agricultural Department office veterinary team leader
Issayas Tessema, DVM, told us that, "Until 1996, homeless dogs were
killed by town councils and the health ministry. The health ministry
contributed poison. The councils provided meat for bait. We vaccinated
owned dogs. In 1996, hwever, the health ministry told us that killing
homeless dogs should be our work, and quit the poisoning. The
agriculture ministry has not accepted poisoning dogs as part of our job.
Now the number of homeless dogs is too high throughout the country. They
are causing serious problems at Bale Mountains National Park in
particular," Dr. Tessema continued.
"There are risks that disease could be transmitted to the
wolves. Rabies could cause their extinction. Vaccinating and
sterilizing owned dogs seems to have reduced the threat to the wolves,"
Dr. Tessema said, "but the homeless dogs are not treated.
This may undermine the
project.
"I believe that the best solution will be to make homeless dogs
non-homeless," Dr. Tessema ended. "To control rabies, we believe the
Debre Zeyit National Veterinary Laboratory should become able to make the
vaccine we need to immunize all of the dogs."
No more rabies
Bale rabies control project chief Dr. Karen Laurenson left
the Bale region three days before we began our interviews. But we did
talk with wildlife research and veterinary team leader Fekadu Shifer-aw,
DVM, and Gedlu Tezera, the rabies control project data collector.
"The growing number of homeless dogs is inversely proportional
to the decline of wildlife," Dr. Fekadu said. "The aim of the Ethiopian
Wildlife Conservation Organization," supported by the World Wildlife
Fund, "is to protect the flora and fauna of the national parks.
Therefore, we vaccinate and sterilize the owned dogs in the wolf range,
including illegal settlers' dogs. Homeless dogs are shot, to remove the
threat to the wolves from hybridization, rabies, parvovirus,
distemper, and canine adenovirus."
Added Mr. Gedlu, "At first our priorities were to vaccinate the
dogs inside the park, and then within the surrounding villages.
But this was unfair because a rabid dog can travel up to 70 kilometers
per day. Now we include more distant districts. My job is to collect
data about dog demography, reproduction, and disease.
In late 2000, four children died from rabies. So far this year, we have
had no reports of rabies in either dogs or people."
Homeless dogs are not vaccinated, according to Mr. Gedlu,
because they cannot be captured.
"In Ethiopia," he said, "people like to have dogs, but they
do not treat them properly. They do not approach their dogs.
Even vaccinating dogs with owners is difficult, because the dogs are not
used to being handled. I think the main influences are poverty and
religion," Mr. Gedlu continued. "Some dogs come to town from villages
by following their owners. Then they stay around the hotels to find some
bones and leftovers." He estimated that two dogs per week arrive this
way in each town that has a hotel.
Mr. Gedlu agreed with Dr. Fekadu that homeless dogs should be
shot.
But shooting the
dogs could create further problems.
We once found a warthog dead from a spear wound near the park
headquarters. It was buried. Homeless dogs excavated the grave and woke
the park staff by barking at dawn. A park scout shot one dog, but for
the next four days the others returned to scavenge the warthog.
My thought was that if dogs were shot and only wounded, not
killed, they might escape into the forest to be scavenged by warthogs
and other carnivores. As the dogs were homeless, they were not
vaccinated. Wild animals could therefore catch diseases from eating them
as carrion.
Yoseph Lamessa, Nation-al Parks coordinating team expert for
the Ethiopian Wildlife Conservation Organization, confirmed my concern.
Anthrax is one disease that could be transmitted to wildlife by the
carrion of domestic animals, he said. In southern Ethiopia, two recent
anthrax outbreaks killed more than 2,400 lesser kudu.
Tourist Guides Associa-tion chair Hussien Adem pointed out that
dogs are not the only domestic animals who may be disease vectors. He
cited the presence in the park of sheep, horses, and cattle, who also
came with illegal settlers, and do a great deal more habitat damage.
"Domestic animals should not wander inside the park, by law,"
agreed Hana Kifle. But she was more critical of the dogs:
"Apart from the problems they cause to workers, guests, and the
visitors' kitchen, the dogs chase young wild-life," she said, "and
when they form packs they kill large animals in what are supposed to be
safely protected areas. We recently found a female mountain nyala whose
belly the dogs had ripped open, killing her and her full-term fetus,"
Mrs. Hana told us. "The Bale rabies control project and Ethiopian wolf
conservation program have vaccinated and sterilized 90% of the owned dogs
in and around the park since 1996, but the homeless dog population has
doubled."
In fact, 90% of the dogs in Bale-Goba village are homeless,
resident Naji Mohammed told us.
While we were doing the interviews, shepherds in an area east
of the park called Ijadoke found the remains of a young mountain nyala.
They informed Zegeye that homeless dogs had separated the nyala from her
herd and chased her until she fell dead. Park scout Shuba Gishu made the
pelt of the nyala into a park museum display.
"This time of year there are many newborn mountain nyalas.
Dogs come to hunt them," Worko Abda told Awel Adem. Mr. Worko is in
charge of Gayssa Camp, a park facility. "We are kept busy chasing the
dogs away on horseback," Mr. Worko continued. "For now, there is no
big problem, because we are working hard," chasing dogs and shooting
them when it is safe to do so. The dogs come from Dinsho town, 10
kilometres away, and Tiyanta, a village at the edge of the park
boundary, Mr. Worko said.
"Bullets and chasing are not good longterm solutions," Mr.
Worko emphasized. "Some of these dogs are the offspring of unsterilized
owned dogs, who have been discarded because the owners cannot feed
them. If these dogs grow up, they join the homeless packs. Some belong
to poor owners who do not keep them at home.
These dogs move from place to place with the homeless dogs to search for
food. Finally, the homeless dogs are not sterilized, so they breed.
"The solution," Mr. Worko said, "would be for the park to
dislodge the illegal settlers and educate the people around the park to
sterilize and confine their dogs, and to think about the homeless
dogs," before doing anything that contributes to their numbers.
Guns or poison
Bale Mountains National Park lodge manager Abdela Hussien
has asked park scouts to shoot dogs who invade the lodge kitchen and camp
sites, but he too believes that shooting is not a good solution.
"Visitors often come in a group and kill sheep for their meal,"
he said. "For the dogs to steal food is routine. I remember how once
Ethiopian Wildlife, Conservation, and Parks coordinator Dr. Claudio
Sillero was vexed by a dog and shot her from long range.
The bullet made her lame.
During the past two years she brought more dogs, and always escaped from
any shooting."
Bale Mountains National Park storekeeper Girma Urgee also
described homeless dogs chasing wildlife and harassing tourists, and
complained that they menace his children outside their relatively
isolated home. Mr. Girma keeps a gun handy. Shooting dogs "may not be a
solution," he told me, "but for the time being it decreases the
threat."
Yeshi Shito, manager of the Genet Hotel in Dinsho, complained
that up to 20 dogs at a time forage at the hotel compound.
"Three days ago the dogs rushed into the kitchen," Mrs. Yeshi said.
"A kitchen worker chased
them, and one dog was run over while crossing the road. She had six
puppies in her belly. I will not forget that horrible sight." But Mrs.
Yeshi thought poisoning the dogs again would be "an incomparable
solution. Anyone who is interested in poisoning them can soon start,"
she said.
"The biggest problem the dogs cause now is killing sheep and
goats," said Dinsho town council chair Tessema Hailu. "This problem is
growing. The number of roadkilled dogs is also increasing. The dogs
also make dirt in the town, and we don't have the budget to clean it,
so the people have health problems. We have repeatedly requested
poison," he said. "If we still do not get it in the very near future,
we will discuss it with higher authorities."
To photograph the rare Ethiopian wolf, whose conservation as an
endangered species occasions much of the concern about homeless dogs, I
traveled to a den site about 10 kilometres from the park headquarters. I
could see where a wolf had regurgitated to feed her pups, but no wolves
were present. I waited a long time, 50 metres away, hoping the wolf
family would return. They did not. This was the only pack known to be
in the area.
As I was completing this report, I heard a gunshot and rushed
outside. I photographed a man shooting a dog who had come with a pack of
seven each night to steal food from the park kitchen.
The rest were shot earlier, but this dog had always escaped. Again he
vanished into the brush and the darkness, but in the morning we found
him, with a missing eye and a broken leg, sniffling and trying to drag
himself back to the town he came from.
--
Merritt Clifton
Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE
P.O. Box 960
Clinton, WA 98236
Telephone: 360-579-2505
Fax: 360-579-2575
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