A British animal charity is working to put reflective ear tags on 500 donkeys in northern Botswana, in an effort to reduce road traffic accidents involving the animals at night.
The Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad (SPANA) — a UK-based international working animal charity — has funded partner charity the Maun Animal Welfare Society (MAWS), which is based in Botswana, to attach the tags.
Around 10% of road traffic accidents in Botswana are caused by animals, which often roam on the roads looking for grazing, but are invisible to drivers at night.
“The people that own working donkeys are some of the very poorest in Botswana’s society and often have no choice other than to let their animals roam freely in search of food,” said SPANA’s Laura Higham.
“This practice is essential but obviously makes the donkeys vulnerable to accidents and we hope that this simple solution will help reduce the number of collisions.”
SPANA and MAWS want the project to be adopted in other parts of the country and hope this will be the first step towards making reflective tags a legal requirement for freely roaming donkeys and livestock in Botswana.
For more information visit www.spana.org and www.maunanimalwelfare.com
