How Floods Affect Animal Welfare
On the 12th of January Tumal Orto woke up to a trail of death left by strong winds and flash floods the night before. Tumal learnt the hard way how floods affect animal welfare when he lost 182 goats and sheep, 11 of them have weak body condition. Tumal is a community leader from Borana, Marsabit, and in his livestock boma hosting five families alone over 700 animals were lost. Tumal is in distress after livestock was swept away. This boma lost around 2.5 million from the 700 goats and sheep that died in the five homesteads. In general, scores of homesteads are affected.
The “Unexpected Rains” mid-January rains of 2022 have brought heavy rain and subsequent flooding to Darathe /Bulluck Grazing fields in North Horr Ward-North, Horr Constituency, Hurri Hills grazing fields in Maikona Ward in North Horr Constituency, and Kambi Nyoka, Dosa Wachu, Mudee, Chachane in Turbi Ward in North Horr Constituency in Marsabit County.
Floods are natural disasters that are extreme events generally caused by abrupt climate change and other environmental factors. Three consecutive rains have been missing in eastern Kenya.
Around 2.9 million people urgently needed food aid. Children were left malnourished with tens of thousands of animals starved to death in Marsabit. Droughts are occurring more frequently due to climate change. Residents fear that this area will become uninhabitable. Community preparedness and resilience is being put as a measure to curb adverse climate change. Early warnings about changes in climate is also being considered as a measure to curb disasters in future. Disaster Risk Reduction strategies have been put across to prevent similar occurrences in future.
The exact number of deaths has not been established so far, but is massive in population. No postmortem has been done so far to determine the cause of death of the livestock.
Those who lost the livestock are hopeless and do not know what to do next. The loss and suffering of animals in disasters causes deep distress, diminishing people’s capacity to rebuild their lives.
What the community needs now is water and pasture to feed their remaining livestock after the floods destroyed their grazing areas.
Eco Clubs of Kenya has launched an appeal to supply feed directly to the community. Donate to support our Animal Disaster Fund.
