Hanoi, Vietnam — An extreme weather phenomenon known as dzud has killed more than 7.1 million animals in Mongolia this year, more than a tenth of the country's total livestock production, endangering herders' livelihoods and way of life.
Dzuds are a combination of perpetual droughts and harsh, snowy winters, which are becoming increasingly severe and frequent due to climate change. They are most associated with Mongolia, but are also found in other parts of Central Asia.
Many deaths, especially among malnourished females and their young, occur during spring, the birthing period.
Livestock herding is crucial to Mongolia's economy and culture, contributing to 80% of agricultural production and 11% of GDP.
In Mongolian the word dzud means disaster. Dzuds occur when extremely heavy snowfalls cause impenetrable layers of snow and ice to cover Mongolia's vast grasslands, preventing animals from grazing and causing them to starve. Drought at other times of the year means there is not enough feed for the animals to fatten up for the winter.
Dzuds used to occur once every ten years, but are becoming more intense and frequent due to climate change. This year's dzud is the sixth in the past decade and the worst yet. Last year there was a dzud and a dry summer. The snowfall was the heaviest since 1975.
The toll on Mongolian herds has soared, with 2.1 million cattle, sheep and goats dying in February, rising to 7.1 million in May. state media.
Thousands of families have lost more than 70% of their entire flock. And the total death toll could reach 14.9 million animals, or nearly 24% of Mongolia's total herd, Deputy Prime Minister S. Amarsaikhan said, according to state media.
Nomadic livestock farming is so important to Mongolia's 3.3 million resource-rich residents that the constitution lists the country's 65 million camels, yaks, cattle, sheep, goats and horses as “national wealth.”
Livestock and their products are the second largest export product after Mongolia miningaccording to the Asian Development Bank.
“The loss of livestock has dealt an irreversible blow to economic stability and exacerbated the already dire conditions of the population,” said Olga Dzhumaeva, head of the East Asian delegation to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Society Maan (IFRC), in an interview with The Associated Press.
High costs for fuel, food and feed made the situation much worse for herders like Gantomor, a 38-year-old herder in the mountainous Arkhangai province. Like many Mongolians, he bears one name.
Warnings of a dzud prompted Gantomor to sell his entire flock of about 400 sheep. He kept only his sturdier yaks and horses, hoping he could take them to pastures that wouldn't be as hard hit, said his sister-in-law, Gantuya Batdelger, 33, a college student.
Even after spending more than $2,000 to transport the remaining approximately 200 animals 200 kilometers (124 mi) to a place he thought would be safer, he did not escape the dzud. Seventy yaks died and forty horses left the herd, leaving less than a hundred. “By selling the sheep (the family) wanted to save some money. But they spent it all,” Batdelger said.
Batdelger's brother-in-law was better off than others. One friend had all but 15 of her 250 yaks die.
The Mongolian countryside was filled with hundreds of carcasses piling up in the melting snow, she said.
Another major challenge is quickly disposing of the carcasses to ensure they do not spread disease. By early May, 5.6 million, or almost 80%, of the dead animals had been buried.
Higher temperatures can cause forest fires or dust storms. Heavy runoff from snowmelt increases the risk of flash flooding, especially in urban areas. Many pregnant animals, weakened by winter, lose their offspring, sometimes because they cannot feed them adequately, said Matilda Dimovska, UNDP representative in Mongolia.
“It's really devastating to see (the baby animals) crying for food,” she said.
The dzud is a perfect example of how intertwined climate change is with poverty and the economy, she said. Shepherds who lose their flocks often migrate to cities like the capital Ulaanbaatar, but find few job opportunities there.
“They get caught up in the cycle of poverty,” she said.
The increasingly routine nature of the dzuds has increased the need for Mongolia to develop better early warning systems for natural disasters, said Mungunkhishig Batbaatar, the country director of the nonprofit People in Need.
Combining technology with community-level approaches works best: “It is estimated that countries with limited early warning coverage have disaster mortality eight times higher than countries with substantial to extensive coverage,” he said.
Meanwhile, international aid has been “very inadequate,” Dzjomaeva said. An IFRC appeal launched in mid-March has not reached even 20% of its target of 5.5 million Swiss francs ($6 million). Budgets strained by urgent responses to crises such as Ukraine or Gaza are a factor, she said, “but this leaves little room for addressing the devastating consequences of dzud in Mongolia.”
Mongolia needs help, but it must also adapt to dzuds with strategies such as better weather forecasts and measures to stop overgrazing. Herders need to diversify their income to help cushion the impact of livestock losses.
Khandaa Byamba, 37, a camel herder living in Dundgobi province in Mongolia's Gobi Desert, said in an online interview that she has learned from her elders and also from the harsh experience of repeated dzuds.
When she saw the first signs of another dzud, she let her camels wander, trusting their own instincts to find pasture. The family previously decided to herd only camels to cope with climate change, drought and deteriorating pastures that have turned into deserts. Khandaa Byamba's husband followed the animals for the first 100 kilometers (62 miles), while she stayed behind with some younger animals.
As the snow piled up, other families reported losing dozens of animals. But after the winter most of her camels returned. They lost only three adult camels and ten younger ones in their herd of more than 200.
“This year has been the hardest,” she says.
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