We are very lucky to live in a country where we have the ability - albeit at a cost - to have our animals put to sleep, without pain, by using drugs or a humane killer (gun). Indeed, we would be considered to be causing unnecessary suffering if we failed to do so and could be prosecuted.
Last week I was in Zanzibar where the cultural and religious rules, or at least the interpretation of them, forbids the killing of an animal unless it is going to be eaten. The Quran also states that it is forbidden to be cruel towards any animal, a rule that we know is ignored in many countries and by people of every religion and those with none. The Masai and Samburu are generally Christian now but their way of life is very pragmatic - where you have livestock, you have deadstock and that's it.
Moving to a hotel near the end of my visit, I was welcomed to 'Paradise' and it was lovely to see donkeys, camels, chickens and a turkey with their chicks, running around the well-tended grounds. The female donkey had been unlucky in the past when someone had cut off the tops of her ears, a 'traditional medicine' of the cruellest kind. However, she was happy and well now and had a filly foal at foot called Bonita.
At the top of a hill within the grounds, I spotted some more long ears, flickering in silhouette. I climbed the hill to a shady area where a donkey was just about standing, cleary shaking and extremely hot. There was no water that he could reach and the only food provided was dried banana leaves which were long and fibrous. His genital area was covered in blue spray and swollen with infection and every so often he tried to stretch his back legs to ease the pain or attempt to pee. There were no droppings in the area. It was clear to me that he was in agony and that he was dying.
The Masai men who work at the hotel for an Indian owner, quickly came up and we talked in Swahili about what had happened. Apparently, three weeks ago, the donkey was attacked by the other donkey jack and had been badly bitten in the genital area. I gathered that the vet had been and later I was told by the owner that the donkey had had an operation and later contracted tetanus. I asked the men to bring clean water, and I offered the donkey a drink which he took eagerly but not for very long. I asked them to leave the water close to the donkey.
An hour later, I went up again by which time the donkey was recumbent. I wiped him over with a damp cloth which I borrowed from one of the Masai, and offered him water from my hand which he sucked from my fingers. We placed the dried leaves under his head to prevent sand getting into his eye but they insisted he was just sleeping when I knew that he was dying. By the following morning he had gone.
The owner wasn't prepared to talk to me properly about what had happened but in later messages told me that it was against the culture and religion of Zanzibar which has a very high proportion of Muslims, to put any animal to sleep. This seems to have overridden the religious rule about not being cruel to an animal and I am struggling to reconcile the two. Even at law school we discussed the fact that rights are great until they rub against the rights of others - in this case an animal - and we know that religious books were written long before we had choices about how to kill an animal for welfare reasons.
I have no doubt whatsoever that this donkey was loved, and shown love, and treated well by his owner to this point. His owner was definitely sad when his donkey died. I wish he could see, even if it is just to keep tourists happy about welfare standards, that it was unfair to leave this donkey struggling and in pain. Rest in peace Punda.
