MARES August 2023 Report
The Matabeleland Animal Rescue & Equine Sanctuary (MARES) does excellent work in Zimbabwe, thanks to the support of AAA donors. Following is a report on their work during August 2023.
August was a very interesting, disturbing and volatile month due to the up and coming elections, which as you may know, are thwart with corruption and intimidation. MARES intentions were to do our vaccination and deworming in the month of August ahead of the heat and dust. Unfortunately, the turnout of donkeys and owners was extremely poor due to the politics (mass arrests were being made on “illegal” gatherings which they, the police, classified our clinics as). It was decided to do our vaccination outreach in October, once the political upheaval of the presidential elections is over. It was noted that there was very little grazing in the Mabale and Dete areas and a load of 200 bales was organised and sent to Soft Foot Alliance to hand out to donkey owners with compromised donkeys. We also noted, sadly, that despite us enforcing the rule of only 2 donkeys per scotch cart, the people continue to hitch 4 donkeys with the belief they can carry more weight.
Our next stop was at Jembwe, Victoria Falls. The main Bulawayo/Victoria Falls road is still extremely corrodeded and dangerous and it took us 6 hours to drive just 256kms from Mabale! The donkey owners were excited to engage in MARES and we were very happy with the condition their donkeys were in. Jembwe co ordinators, Veronica and Charlene, are in the process of building a small community workshop to repair and make harnesses in their little community. We are proud to say that MARES has now handed out our padded harnesses to every donkey and owner in the Jembwe area. Two of the local people will be coming to train at MARES in Bulwayo on harness making and repairing. 16 sets of pads were replaced due to their wearing down and 2 swingle trees and chain were replaced on a cart where theirs were stolen whilst the owner was away.
MARES has been providing humane harnesses in Victoria Falls since 2018 and we have now moved to a new village in the Mondi area. MARES was met with some resistance to change the donkey owners from using 4 donkeys to 2 donkeys and more education is needed in this area. Whilst we were there we attended to 11 donkeys with minor wounds, 3 with severe harness wounds which we attended to and provided the owner with his new harnesses with the express to the owner to rest his donkeys until their wounds had healed. We treated another 2 donkeys with sarcoids, 3 donkeys with hoof abscesses and 3 with cart wounds.
Back in Bulawayo MARES was called out to collect a donkey that had been abandoned due to his injuries sustained from an overloaded cart. It was also noted that a home castration had been attempted on the young donkey which had gone wrong. We took him back to MARES for rehabilitation and medication and once his infection has cleared MARES will knock him out and attempt to correct the botched castration.
A total of 42 harnesses and 18 scotch carts were done between the 3 areas.
