Iraq's gazelles die of hunger and find nothing to eat!

Hunger threatens the rare rim deer in Iraq with extinction due to the interruption of food resources and drought, as the rest of them in the Sawa Reserve in the south of the country are looking for anything to eat.

Half of these deer have died since last April 29, and their number has decreased from 148 to 87 in one month, as rains were scarce this year, as well as government support with fodder necessary for their survival, according to a report by "AFP".

Veterinarian Turki Al-Jiashi, director of the Sawa Nature Reserve project, said that "the food supply stopped due to the lack of financial funds", which was a major reason, but "climatic factors greatly affected the reem deer" as well.

He pointed out that "technical development and the encroachment of agricultural investments into the desert led to a gradual decrease in the number of animals" over the years.

For his part, an official in the Forestry Department of the Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture, who preferred to remain anonymous, said that "the number of deer has decreased in three reserves by about 25 percent over the past three years."

He added that their numbers in these three reserves amount to 224. He attributes this significant decrease in the number of animals, especially to the "lack of financial allocations in recent years."

The Reem gazelle is historically associated with the Iraqi desert, which is its original habitat, as well as its distribution in other regions of the world such as Libya, Egypt and Algeria, which are classified as "endangered" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

It is noteworthy that Iraq is one of the five countries most vulnerable to climate change and desertification in the world, especially due to the increasing drought with high temperatures that exceed fifty degrees Celsius for days in the summer.

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