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Govt starts campaign to save rare wild life

Somaliland’s government has embarked on a major campaign to save  two rare  wild life species from extinction.

The chairman of the Somaliland Ecological Conservation Society Mohamed Kille, said in an interview that in the last seven years the government’s Wild-Life Preservation Department, in collaboration with the Somaliland Society for Ecological Conservation, has been engaged in a campaign for raising the public awareness about this tragic problem.

Kale, who is also an expert on Somaliland’s wild life, said people were told not to harm these most endangered species. A legislation banning their hunting was also introduced. Last year, the Ministry of Tourism came up with a plan to establish a national park for preservation of wild-life animals at the remote north eastern Sanag Plain where the last remaining Gumburi and Zebra species are believed to have gone to seek refuge. However this plan has yet to be implemented due to lacks of funds.

Until the 19^th century Somaliland was home to a large population of two rare types of wild life species called the Somaliland White Donkey (better known locally as Gumburi) and the Somaliland Zebra. However these two animal species are now faced with the threat of extinction.

According an official from the Wild-Life Preservation Department, there are now fewer than 20 Gumburi and little over 50 Somaliland Zebra left in the whole country.

The Gumburi looks like a donkey. But it lives in the wild and is distinguishable from the ordinary domestic donkey by its densely white color and smaller size. The Somaliland Zebra bears resemblance to similar stocks found in Africa except that it has brown lines over its body instead of the usually black ones. Both the Gumburi and Somaliland Zebra are species found only in Somaliland.

Kale said  there are a multitude of causes of the threat to wildlife. First, rainforests in the Sanag region which have been the natural habitat of both the Gumburi and the Somaliland Zebra were devastated as a result of unchecked erosion and frequent droughts over the decades. This caused 90 percent of these two species being wiped out by the mid 1970s.

The remaining few hundreds were driven to the Savanah plains. However rapidly increasing trends among nomadic pastoralists for sedentarization in the last 30 years had made the Gumburi and the Zebra even more vulnerable to being trapped by hunters who trade in selling rare animals to Zoos abroad. By the turn of this century their numbers were reduced to several dozens of each species.

On the public rersponse to the campaign, Kale said: “Public reaction has been tremendously positive. People now see the near extinction of the Gumburi and the Zebra as a national issue. This year a hunter trying to catch a Zebra was apprehended by the community and handed over to the police. He was later sentenced to five years in prison. Since this incident, there have been no reports of poaching in the area.”

Kale said  the establishment of the National Park is necessary to save the Gumburi and the Somaliland Zebra from extinction. The location of the park will be in the north eastern Sanag plain, which, besides being ever-green round the year, is home to the remaining survivors of the two species threatened with extinction.

Though the park would serve as a safe haven for the endangered species wildlife experts and environmentalists would establish monitoring and control mechanisms in the park to make sure that the Gumburi and Zebra herds are given the necessary care and not deprived of their natural habitat. The population level of each kind would be expected to multiply as years go by.

To avoid any damage from tourists, Kale said the proposed Sanag National Park would be off-limits to tourists for the first  fiveyears. By then hundreds of species would have been produced, he added.