Winter Ravages Mongolian Livestock
An unusually brutal winter in Mongolia has left much of the country’s grazing land frozen and snow-covered, starving or freezing millions of animals and upending thousands of lives in a country where a third of the population depends on herding and agriculture to make a living.
This year has brought the most snow in 49 years to Mongolia, and the deaths of more than 5.9 million head of livestock, the worst toll since 2010, international aid groups said in late March. While the harshest weather might have passed, about 60 million animals face starvation until new grass sprouts in May.
“The worst is yet to come,” Tapan Mishra, the top United Nations official in Mongolia, wrote in a report. “The peak of livestock mortality is expected at the end of April.”
The die-off is caused by a weather event known in Mongolia as dzud, where a dry summer is followed by a severe winter that brings deep snow and bitter cold, locking pastures under ice. The deaths can be devastating for families and the country’s economy, 13 percent of which is driven by agriculture, mostly livestock.
In eastern Mongolia, Shijirbayar Dorjderem, 48, said he had lost 800 animals this year out of the 1,000 he inherited. That was after he had purchased thousands of packs of fodder and several tons of wheat with money borrowed from a bank. “All I can think about is my bank loan,” he added, afraid the bank might take away his remaining livestock. “I lost almost everything.”
His province, Khentii, was one of the worst-hit. Its deputy governor, Oyunbold Lkhagvasuren, said about 45 percent of the livestock there had died.
Mongolian herders know harsh winters. Temperatures can fall to 40 degrees below zero, leaving livestock to freeze to death in a standing position. In 2010, the dzud killed more than 10.3 million animals, equal to 25 percent of the country’s livestock population, according to the United Nations.
The rising frequency of extreme weather events has made herders’ lives more precarious. Droughts, dust storms, heavy rainfall and flooding have all tripled in the past decade. While dzuds used to happen about once every 10 years, this year’s was the fifth in the past decade.
It is unclear whether the dzud weather pattern is tied to climate change. But Mongolia is feeling climate change in other ways. Average temperatures have increased much faster than the global average (over 2 degrees in the past 70 years, the United Nations said).
Extreme weather is not the only culprit behind the harsh winters. Overgrazing and the depletion of grasslands are the other major factors.
This year’s dzud, which began in November, has left over 7,000 families in Mongolia lacking food as the livelihoods of thousands of herders, who depend on cattle, goats and horses, were under threat, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said last month.
More than 2,000 families have lost over 70 percent of their livestock, the organization added. Snow has also buried more than 1,000 homes.
The Mongolian government delivered hay, food and other supplies to herders. But aid groups said more was needed.
Evariste Kouassi-Komlan, UNICEF’s representative in Mongolia, said it might take herders from five to 10 years to restore their livestock.
“This is a big disaster for these families,” he said.
In a herding culture, millions of dead animals.