(ERGO) – Pastoralists in Garas-Dulan, a village 25 kilometres from Bardera in southern Somalia’s Gedo region, have been suffering from marauding monkeys attacking their livestock, as the drought has pushed hungry wild animals into conflict with humans.
The village commissioner, Weli Mohamud Kassim, said they have recorded incidents in which around 800 goats have been killed by wild animals in the past four months.
Local herder Yusuf Abdi Shakul has been trying to protect his last remaining 70 goats from monkeys. He lost numerous of his animals during the past months of drought and quite a number between 12-28 March when the monkey attacks were relentless.
“The monkeys come in groups and if you don’t have knives or saws or other weapons you can’t protect yourself. I have lost 24 goats! They attack us at home and while we are out grazing the livestock. They have attacked us a hundred times, sometimes we manage to fend them off but sometimes the monkeys defeat us,” he explained.
He has taken over herding the livestock from his five children. Both boys and girls normally graze the goats but currently things are too dangerous.
Yusuf carries metal objects to clang together to scare off the monkeys as they come at sunrise and sunset. If this fails, he and the other men resort to beating them off hand-to-hand with sticks and saws.
“The monkeys attack us and the goats. If it gets to the goats before you, they might skin the goats alive. They are powerful and can easily kill the goats. Just yesterday they killed four of my goats,” he stated.
Yusuf lost 150 goats and 30 camels to the drought and is determined to hold on to the remainder of the herd despite the added challenges.
His family currently depends on food bought on credit from stores in Garas-dulan village. With the rainy season starting in parts of Gedo, he says he plans to migrate away with his livestock and family in search of pasture, leaving behind the monkey attacks.
Another villager, Mohamed Adan Ahmad was attacked by monkeys at the end of February.
“The monkeys attacked me while I was out with the goats. They went for the goats’ stomachs and ripped out their intestines as we tried to protect them. Then they turned on me and as I was using my hand to shield myself from their claws I was injured on the fingers of my right hand,” he said.
In the last three months he says he was attacked 10 times by monkeys, losing 40 goats and with 14 other goats injured.
Monkeys also invaded his food store in his house on 25 March.
“They ate a sack of rice, a sack of sugar and one of flour. The young children at home ran away in fear,” he said.
He had bought this food using money from selling off three of his goats. His family of five children were already in hard times and depending on help from their relatives.
An animal behaviour expert with the Jubbaland livestock ministry, Dr Abdirisak Jama Mohamud, said monkey attacks were at their height due to the extreme drought, as the wildlife could not find food in their normal bush habitat and were attacking people to find something to eat.
He advised: “The only way to deal with these monkeys is to make better livestock sheds. At night, pastoralists could also burn firewood to scare away the monkeys. Pastoralists could also migrate away from the area with their livestock to protect them.”
