Beta
193042

Extent and Awareness to Use Animals for Traditional Medicine and Attitudes towards Ethnozoological Knowledge among Communities of Menz Keya Gabriel District, North Ethiopia

Article

Last updated: 03 Jan 2025

Subjects

-

Tags

-

Abstract

Traditional medicinal knowledge has played an important role in identifying living organisms that are endowed with medicinal values for treating human and livestock health problems. This study explores the existing extent and awareness to use animals for traditional medicine and attitudes towards ethnozoological knowledge among communities of Menz Keya Gabriel District, North Ethiopia. The data were collected through questionnaires and interviews from three selected kebeles of the district with 70 respondents. The majority (88.6%) of the local people knew animals that were used as traditional medicine for human and animal disease. Also, local people enforced the use of animals for traditional medicines due to different reasons such as economical reasons (30%), effectiveness (24.3%), sociocultural reason (20%), insufficient or lack of modern medicine (14.3%) and availability and accessibility of medicinal animals around the area (11.4%). Most respondents perceived that traditional medicinal animals are used sometimes (38.6%), while 35.7% and 25.7% use in situational and always manner, respectively. The main threat for medicinal animals in the area arises from habitat loss due to agricultural expansion, firewood and charcoal production. Whereas threats that erode and put the continuity under the question of ethnozoological knowledge emanate from the disinterest of the young generation, and unwillingness, secrecy and oral-based knowledge transfer of healers. Therefore, to avoid erosion of this knowledge and to sustain animals, awareness creation should be given to healers and local people. Further biological researches on medicinal animals should also be conducted. 

DOI

10.21608/eajbsz.2021.193042

Keywords

Animal, conservation, Ethnozoology, Indigenous knowledge, Zootherapy

Authors

First Name

Mastewal

Last Name

Hailemariam

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Department of Biology, College of Natural and Computational Sciences, Debre Berhan University, Ethiopia

Email

mastewalhmariam@gmail.com

City

Addis Ababa

Orcid

-

First Name

Sefi

Last Name

Mekonen

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Department of Biology, College of Natural and Computational Sciences, Debre Berhan University, Ethiopia

Email

mekonen.sefi@gmail.com

City

-

Orcid

-

Volume

13

Article Issue

2

Related Issue

26137

Issue Date

2021-12-01

Receive Date

2021-07-30

Publish Date

2021-12-01

Page Start

77

Page End

88

Print ISSN

2090-0759

Online ISSN

2090-0821

Link

https://eajbsz.journals.ekb.eg/article_193042.html

Detail API

https://eajbsz.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=193042

Order

7

Type

Original Article

Type Code

672

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Egyptian Academic Journal of Biological Sciences, B. Zoology

Publication Link

https://eajbsz.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

Extent and Awareness to Use Animals for Traditional Medicine and Attitudes towards Ethnozoological Knowledge among Communities of Menz Keya Gabriel District, North Ethiopia

Details

Type

Article

Created At

22 Jan 2023