From the 1980s onwards people in Andalusia have awakened to the urgent need to save an endangered donkey breed from extinction. We believe the Andalusian donkey (or Cordobés, also known as Lucentino) can be traced back to the Egyptians – in other words a domestic species that is 3,000 years old. At the moment members of Asnopra – the association that controls the breed book – are engaging with archiving the recent history.
Here is a video from 2012 at the Military Stables in Écija (Córdoba). A pure bred Andalusian donkey is being led out first, followed by a Catalan and a Zamorano-Leonesa. The Zamorano is a long-haired donkey like the Poitou in France, but this military example has been clipped. (Anyone unfamiliar with clipping, see the Donkey Sanctuary instructions and examples of types of clip and the rationale for doing this.)
There are six native donkey breeds in Spain, all endangered. (The other three – not present in the video – are the asno Encartaciones, the Mallorquina and the Majorera.)
Brief update:
At present I am heavily involved in study and research on this theme, and the blog has not been updated for a while. Blogs of this kind largely drifted out of fashion several years ago (with the arrival of podcasts etc.) and fewer people taqke the trouble to read text. The world has moved to podcasts and soundbites! The purpose of this space now is largely to help me to organise my study of the Andalusian donkey.
I’ll keep commenting open, if only for its nostalgic value – there were plenty of comments in the old days when it was my donkey diary! – but nobody has commented for a while and I’m not really too bothered by that, as I’m mostly writing about a topic that few people want to engage with: the prehistory of Equus asinus africanus. Twenty years ago, I too would have skipped quickly past any blog about that topic!