Caught this as a new item this morning - its one of those passing thought items, while the world aid agencies and celebraties all claimer to be the goody goody who help Haiti (bad as it was) seems apart from the red cross and a mongolian authorites no-one is bothering to help one of the worlds last true nomadic cultures ............ GLOBAL WARMING is being blamed but regardless of cause it would be a shame if they herders were forced to leave the steppe and become animals caged in cities like the rest of us ................
Frozen Cattle Crisis In Brutal Mongolia Winter
8:25am UK, Monday February 08, 2010
Peter Sharp, Asia correspondent
Up to 20 million farm animals may die in Mongolia before spring as the fiercest winter in living memory grips the country, International Aid Agencies are being warned.
Half the entire country's livestock could be wiped out, local experts told the Red Cross.
A Sky News team that travelled through remote regions in Central Mongolia found cattle, goats and sheep frozen to death across the plains, with some herds almost completely wiped out.
Outside her traditional home in Central Mongolia, grandmother Hotont Suon weeps as she looks at the carcasses of her herd lying on their backs.
Their legs to the air, they are frozen to death. In the pens, sheep huddle together from the bitter cold. Two died while we watched.
Dogs and goats gnaw from the carcasses of the dead animals strewn outside the traditional 'gurs', the herders' circular tented homesteads.
"Our hay is all gone now. As our goats die we sell the hides and buy more fodder, but it only lasts a few days," she said.
Herding families, who are enduring brutal conditions, receive vital Red Cross aid
It's called the 'Dzud' - a multiple disaster with a summer drought followed by one of the coldest winters on record.
It has left millions of livestock dying from a combination of exhaustion and starvation - some herders report that their cattle perish at the rate of 50 a night.
Some families have even been reduced to sharing their small tented home with the surviving animals.
Inside a gur, a three month old baby played with a black wet-faced calf.
The baby's mother Otgon Jargal broke down in tears.
"We have no skills. Our lives depend on our livestock. How can I look after my child when all the animals have died?" she cried.
Animal hides lie in piles - some herds have been almost wiped out
The Mongolian government has appealed for food, medicine and animal food to combat one of the country's worst natural disasters.
The poorer herding families are left with insufficient food supplies to last out the winter. Many have taken out high interest loans to pay for animal fodder which they can't meet.
Fears are also growing for thousands of herders who live in remote mountain regions in south-western Mongolia.
There has been no word from thousands of people cut off in their villages by the heaviest snow fall in decades, prompting Mongolian Airforce helicopters to launch search and rescue operations
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Farm-Animals-In-Mongolia-Die-In-Freezing-Conditions-Herders-Livelihoods-Ruined-by-Fierce-Winter/Article/201002115544355?f=rss
