Donkeys are essential pack animals in many rural African communities. They are the quiet laborers that carry clean water and firewood, transport children to school, mothers to clinics, and goods to market.

However, donkeys are disappearing and rising in cost due to Chinese demand for their hides. Wiebke Plasse of the German animal welfare group Welttierschutzgesellschaft recently visited a market in the southwestern Kenyan town of Bisil, about 60 kilometers from the Tanzanian border. Plasse saw several hundred donkeys at the market, and a trader said more were coming.

“When you ask, you find out: All these donkeys are reserved for a single buyer, who isn’t even here,” Plasse told The Revelator, an online environmental news and ideas platform run by the Center for Biological Diversity.

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