n Hugo I think Correa
EFE Agency
With a world population that is decreasing due to its sacrifice to obtain cosmetic substances and because it has lost space in field tasks with industrialization, the donkey is today a threatened species that is honored in the Colombian town of San Antero.
According to the list of threatened species of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the donkey is in critical danger of extinction, which is a step before it is declared extinct in the wild.
As occurs in Otumba (northern Mexico) or in the Zamora town of San Vitero (Spain), which also hold festivals of this type, in San Antero, a town of 35,000 inhabitants in the Caribbean department of Córdoba that lives from fishing, agriculture and tourism, seeks to create ecological awareness and preserve donkeys.
With activities that combine religious traditions and cultural expressions to reactivate an economy that depends to a large extent on visitors seeking the crystal clear waters of Cispatá Bay, the Donkey Festival becomes an attraction in northern Colombia every Easter. .
“For more than a century the festival has been a religious celebration called ‘the walk of Judas’ and since 1987 in the municipality it was decided that homage should also be paid to the donkey, an important animal in the development of our town”, explained to EFE the mayor of San Antero, Lormandy Martínez.
Although there are no updated figures on how many donkeys there are in Colombia, the 1995 agricultural census showed that the herd exceeded 300,000 but in 2013 it had dropped to 63,000.
Since 2016, the Colombian Agricultural Institute (ICA) has tightened the conditions for exporting donkey skins, which specifically go to China, due to reports that the illegal slaughter of animals is reducing their population in the country. Even in the Attorney General’s Office there are open investigations on the matter.
LOSING TO THE MACHINES
Carlos Bertel, who has lived his 65 years in San Antero, affirms that people in the fields no longer want to use donkeys for their agricultural tasks because they prefer motorcycles, which serve as a means of transportation and cargo, tasks for which that these animals were traditionally used for.
“These (young) guys don’t even know how to ride a donkey anymore, they spend their time on a motorcycle because they don’t get sick and a motorcycle mechanic is cheaper than a vet,” he says.
The situation of donkeys is not serious only in Colombia. Queen Emeritus Sofía of Spain warned a few years ago about the threat to the survival of these animals after seeing on a trip to Africa “skins drying in the sun to export to China” where they are processed to produce ejiao, a gelatin used to make from cosmetics to restoratives.
Since their domestication began, about 7,000 years ago in East Africa, the number of donkeys has been decreasing and is currently estimated at 50 million copies, but it is estimated that by the end of the decade there will be only about 22 million.
Costume contest
In addition to recognizing the importance of the donkey and treating these animals with dignity, the festival in San Antero includes different cultural facets, such as dance and theater groups and bands.
Preceded by the “burrolgata”, a parade in which the nearly 500 donkeys that still exist in San Antero participate, the biggest event is the donkey costume contest, where parodies of current affairs and show business predominate, combined with ecological messages of preservation of the environment and especially of these animals.
“My message every year is for us to take care of the mangrove because it is the cradle of ecosystems and in this region we must work to develop ecotourism that is sustainable because I believe that the most important thing is to preserve nature,” says Alberto Cárdenas, who accompanies the costume of the “manglero donkey”.
For his part, Carlos Álvarez, who disguised his donkey as a blue crab, which, like the donkey, is also an endangered species, argued that they must be preserved.
“We are sending the message that they do not contaminate our beaches, which is where this crustacean lives”, which, like the donkey, is essential in the economy of San Antero.