From the article:
Mongolia has experienced six dzuds in the past decade, including the winter of 2022-23 when 4.4 million head of livestock perished.
This year’s dzud has been exacerbated by a summer drought that prevented animals from building up enough fatty stores to survive the harsh winter.
70% of Mongolia is experiencing “dzud or near dzud” conditions, the UN said.
That compares with 17% of the country at the same time in 2023.
“The winter started with heavy snow but suddenly air temperatures rose, and the snow melted,” herder Tuvshinbayar Byambaa told AFP. “Then the temperatures dropped again, turning the melting snow into ice.”
That ice makes it hard for the livestock to break through to the grass below, he said, preventing them from grazing and forcing many herders to borrow money for feed. “The weather changes are so sudden these days,” Tuvshinbayar said.
The deadliest dzud on record was the winter of 2010-11, when more than 10 million animals died – almost a quarter of the country’s total livestock at the time.
Snowfall this year – the heaviest since 1975 – has compounded herders’ woes, trapping them in colder areas and making them unable to buy food and hay for their animals from the nearby towns.
Mongolia is one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world and about one-third of its population of 3.3 million people is nomadic.
The government has promised to help, launching a campaign to deliver hay fodder to herders in a bid to prevent further losses of crucial commodities like meat and cashmere, one of the country’s top exports.
But for now, Tuvshinbayar and his fellow herders can only pray for warmer weather...