ケニアのロバはだいぶ「密猟」されちゃってるようで

　それは密猟というか窃盗というか。そこらの零細農家・事業者じゃロバが輸送の主力だったりするが、これが夜の間に盗まれて骨だけになってしまう…といった事例が多発してるとか。

BBC Millions of donkeys killed each year to make medicine 15 Feb 2024　By Victoria Gill and Kate Stephens

　…人力で水売りなんて、してらんねぇですからね。

「To sell water and make his living, Steve relied completely on his donkeys. They pulled him in his cart loaded with its 20 jerry cans to all his customers. When Steve's donkeys were stolen for their skins, he could no longer work.

That day started like most others. In the morning, he left his home in the outskirts of Nairobi and went to the field to get his animals.

"I couldn't see them," he recalls. "I searched all day, all night and the following day." It was three days later that he got a call from a friend telling him he had found the animals' skeletons. "They'd been killed, slaughtered, their skin was not there."」

　まあ、当blogの過去記事にもみられるように、これはロバ皮から作る漢方薬需要のための殺ロバ。

「Its origins are thousands of miles from that field in Kenya. In China, a traditional medicinal remedy that is made with the gelatin in donkey skin is in high demand. It is called Ejiao.」

　結構なしのぎになるようで、まああちこちでロバ殺害禁止令が出ているそう。なにしろロバは、有用なのになかなか増え辛い。需要のままに殺してたら絶滅するんじゃないか！というくらいだそうな。少なくとも遺伝子的多様性を急速に減じる勢いだという危惧だと理解する。

「And it is big business. According to China-Africa relations scholar Prof Lauren Johnston, from the University of Sydney, the Ejiao market in China increased in value from about $3.2bn (£2.5bn) in 2013 to about $7.8bn in 2020.」

「But for all their qualities, donkeys do not breed easily or quickly. So campaigners fear that if the trade is not curtailed, donkey populations will continue to shrink, depriving more of the poorest people of a lifeline and a companion.」

　…まあ、困りますよねと。