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Rotting cattle carcasses now matter of concern

By Staff Writer

Pungent smell from piles of  animals’ carcasses strewn in parts of Monduli, Longido and Ngorongoro Districts, is raising health concerns. In Loliondo, dead animals have been blocking roads.

“We have already directed ward and village executives to start clearing these decaying carcasses, the best way should be by burying the rotting piles,” Mr Elias Wawa Lali, the Ngorongoro District Commissioner said  over the phone.

According to Mr Wawa-Lali some residents and especially those of Loliondo and Wasso areas had strategically started to drag the dead carcasses onto the roads as some form of protest or demonstration against the state.

However, as far as the District Commissioner is concerned, such demos were not only illogical but rather childish, because the government had nothing to do with the drought spell which killed their livestock.

                                                                                                      A total of 65,000 animals perished in Ngorongoro in the
                                                                                                      last few months, these account for 18 percent of the 380,000 cattle in the District. Prices for livestock dropped from an average of 200,000/- per cow to less than 20,000/-.

Natives of Ngorongoro, who are mostly Maasai, believe in keeping large herds of cattle for prestige and status but  benefiting very little from the livestock.

President Jakaya Kikwete recently took a team of Ngorongoro traditional elders to Uganda where they were to learn effective and profitable cattle keeping methods, instead of herding innumerable non-beneficial animals.

Ngorongoro cattle herds have been reduced to decaying carcasses scattered all over the place. Recent rains have made the stench unbearable in a number of places.

It is the same case that applies in Monduli where 3500 cattle were decimated by drought recently. Among them were some 700 cows belonging to Laibon Leshuko Nabi.

The Laiboni’s household as some parts of Monduli are littered with rotting remains of cattle herds and residents there want authorities to clean up the place fearing outbreak of diseases.

However the District Commissioner Mr Jowika Wilson Kasunga isn’t sure; “It is not possible to clear the district of the dead livestock carcasses strewn all over.”

Longido also suffered livestock deaths but it was not easy to contact the District Commissioner for comment.

In Simanjiro District recently, a nineteen year old resident of Lobosoit Village, identified as Lemari Saimorei hanged himself to death after his cattle herd of 50 reportedly starved to death.

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