Time runs out for animal survivors of Pakistan quake
With their homes and barns in ruins and winter fast approaching, many fear they won’t be able to keep alive the animals that survived the October 8 quake after the snow comes, so they’re slaughtering and selling them.
But agriculture and health officials say farm animals are vital for the mountain people of northern Pakistan — for both their health and economic well being — and the animal survivors of the quake must be kept alive.
“We’re very frightened when farmers begin selling their assets. What happens next year?” said Keith Ursel of the U.N. World Food Program, which is helping to feed about 1 million human survivors of the quake.
More than 250,000 farm animals — the source of milk, yogurt and butter — also perished, many killed when their dry-stone and concrete barns caved in, a livestock official said.
Animals grazing when the quake struck were killed in landslides, some were swept to their death in rivers. The disaster zone has been littered with decomposing cattle.
Aid officials, racing to get shelter and food to mountain communities before winter sets in, fear a second wave of death if sickness sweeps through a malnourished and traumatized population.
Animals provide an essential part of the people’s diet but milk production has fallen off dramatically, partly because so many animals were killed but also because many of the animals that survived have been neglected since the quake.
Many farmers have been selling animals to traders from the plains. Naqvi said he had sold his cows and buffalos for less than half the usual price.
One group trying to help is the British animal welfare organization the Brooke Hospital for Animals.
It has set up an animal hospital in the small town of Ghari Dupatta, in the Jhelum Valley to the southeast of Muzaffarabad, and is helping farmers in 15 surrounding villages with shelter, food and vaccinations for their animals.
“Mostly the animals are suffering from pneumonia, bronchitis, and they’re too weak,” said former Pakistani army veterinary officer Qadeer Ahmed, working at the hospital.
Many animals are weak because they starved after the quake, their owners dead, in mourning or too traumatized to cope.
“The owners were not in a fit condition; there was nobody to look after them and they remained without food,” Ahmed said.
Ahmed and his team are treating about 1,000 animals a day. Farmers, knowing help was at hand, had stopped getting rid of their animals since his team began their work, he said.
“They are not selling, they have stopped it,” he said.
Source: Yahoo News
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