2% of the world’s rarest zebras wiped out in Kenya’s relentless drought. The last straw? There’s probably too much water for the land to support both zebras and horses. So the zebras, and their horses, are headed for extinction.
The country is in the grip of a severe drought, with no new rains in sight. And while the government has pledged to provide food for its citizens for months to come, officials have had little success figuring out how to feed their starving cattle population of about 200,000.
So the World Wildlife Fund has started to sell a small portion of grain to livestock producers in a bid to prevent the animals from starving. But they want you to know it’s a limited amount. The grain, produced in South Africa, contains a small amount of protein, and the World Wildlife Fund says it hopes to keep the animals from going hungry but not completely prevent them from starving.
And the sale is being held in the remote, impoverished area near Garissa, where the population of zebra and horse populations is estimated to be about half of what they were a couple years ago. The grain will be sold by the charity World Vision, which has an office there. The World Wildlife Fund also says the grain will be sold to grain traders, who will take it to Kenya’s port of Lamu to be transported to the major city of Mombasa.
If you want to take advantage of the sale, you’ll need to buy a package of 30 pounds of grain. You’ll need to buy a $19 ticket because the grain has some extra weight attached to it. You should send the money to the charity World Vision, which is based in the U.S., and the ticket to the charity W.W.F., which is based in Kenya. The price includes a $3,500 donation to the charity.
The sale will be held in Garissa from April 10 through 13. But don’t expect the sale to bring out the tourists that would normally come to Kenya in April.
