Friday, May 24, 2013

Armenian farmers feel defenseless after fresh wolf attacks on domestic animals

Despite efforts of the government to protect Armenian villagers from wolf attacks, the beasts continue to cause considerable damage to the country’s cattle-breeding rural communities. Only during this week three separate wolf attacks on domestic animals were reported in two provinces of Armenia, with more than 50 sheep killed by the predators. “We woke up at 5 in the morning to go and inspect our cattle-shed only to see 23 sheep mauled there. Some of them survived, we had a total of 31. It’s a big loss. We called our village mayor, who promised to do whatever is necessary. We’ll see what happens,” Zina Smoyan, a resident of the village of Sipan of the Aragatsotn province, told ArmeniaNow. The owner of the sheep killed by wolves says her large family has incurred a loss of about 1.3 million drams (or more than $3,100) based on the current prices of sheep in the village. Tengiz Mamoyan, the head of Sipan, which is a 324-member community of mainly Yezidis, tells ArmeniaNow that local farmers mainly breed cattle for meat and wool and they are apprehensive of wolf attacks. The village mayor says that a lot of such attacks happened in the past. In particular, 30 sheep were killed in a single attack in 2012. The family that lost the domestic animals then has not received assistance till today. On Monday a report came from the region of Lori where in the village of Amrakits wolves killed 25 sheep, the next day three sheep were killed by wolves in the town of Stepanavan...more

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