An advocacy campaign to protect the beast of burden was recently launched in Bamenda.

Credited as hardworking animals at the service of the world’s poorest communities, donkeys are used as the beasts of burden that they are, often overladen, underfed, beaten and generally ill-used.

This is the image given the animal that is a-must in enhancing agricultural production and productivity and transporting food produce, especially in rural Cameroonian communities.

Animal rights activists think that this is undeserving for an animal whose role is appreciated by a negligible few. The health and welfare of the stoic donkey does not appear to be the priority of their owners. This is the ugly situation of donkeys begging for attention in Cameroon.

In effect, the health and welfare of donkeys is crucial for those who depend on it for livelihood. The subject was topical on June 6, 2015, when the Bamenda-based Foundation for Animal Welfare Cameroon (FAWCAM), launched a campaign to raise awareness on animal welfare issues.

It is all about helping to change public perception of animals. It is also about enhancing the status of donkeys which enrich the lives of many, but are often abused and neglected to suffer in silence.

The promoters of the animal welfare campaign, Prof. Ben Fru Wara and veterinarian, Dr Abraham Abaandou, say donkeys deserve fair treatment as the most adaptable of draught animals - being durable, easy to handle and less fastidious to feed than other species.

Prof. Wara is at loss at the level of ignorance and lack of understanding on the needs of donkeys with respect to health and welfare. This is worrisome especially as farmers in Bui and Donga-Mantung Divisions of the North West Region depend on donkeys to transport kola nuts, plantain, coffee, Irish potato and other produce to markets. The animal is also used in transporting water and wood. The use of saddle packs in loading donkeys results in many of them developing saddle galls or wounds, experts say.

It is against this backdrop that FAWCAM recommends better care and protection for the donkey which plays a frontline role in the happiness and survival of the human being in the conviction that a healthier, long-living donkey is invaluable to its poverty-stricken owner.

The advocacy also encourages humane education and the need for compassion and respect for animals and animal welfare legislation. It emerged from the event that FAWCAM is committed to raise awareness, investigate cruelty cases against donkeys, campaign for the ethical treatment of donkeys and promote a society that recognizes the contribution of donkeys to community livelihoods.