Display of animal skins during Acholi festival angers UWA

A total of 205 traditional dance troupes from clans all over Acholi Sub-region showcased traditional dances and various aspects of cultural heritage at the Acholi cultural festival recently.

The groups competed to display Acholi traditional dress codes and dances by dressing in animal skins or veiling their heads with feathers drawn from unique bird species. The more a group displayed originality in their sense of design, the more credit they garnered.

Skins and hides of buffaloes, leopards, baboons, colobus monkeys, antelopes and hartebeests were the most displayed during the three-day festival that ended last Saturday.

The cultural festival was launched last year with the main aim of bringing the Acholi people together to celebrate and promote their culture.

Mr Ongom Wodogal is the troupe leader of Lapono Bwola dance group who donned a remarkable large leopard skin. Each of his male dancers wrapped themselves in beautiful black and white skins of Colobus monkeys.
Mr Ongom said the skins are acquired through hunting although he stated that the leopard skin he wrapped himself in had lasted approximately 50 years and it is what his clan uses for enthroning chiefs.

UWA condemns display
Although the displays of wildlife skins and hides remain a key pride to the Acholi, it has attracted condemnation from Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA).

According to UWA, the wide display of pieces of wild animal skins confirmed its impression that locals in the region are poaching wildlife to extract skins that are then preserved as artifacts for such cultural ceremonies.

“That huge display confirms that wildlife poaching is very rampant in the region for such reasons. We are interested in this and we shall want to find out how they got these skins of wild animals,” Dr Eric Enyel, the UWA acting director for Murchison Game Park, said.

For one to possess any wildlife product, remain, body part or skin of a wild animal, it has to be sanctioned by UWA who issues the holder a certificate of possession.

UWA demands a person found in possession of a wildlife product without its authorisation should explain how he or she acquired it.

“We are disappointed by the display because it means these animals are killed before their skins and hides are extracted ,especially the Colobus monkeys and leopard.We are going to investigate this,” Dr Enyel said.

The Colobus monkeys are one of the primates the country has. UWA has put lot of efforts to save them currently as they face extinct due to poaching, he added.

Mr Ambrose Olaa, the prime minister of Acholi chiefdom, dismissed claims that wild animals are being killed for their hides and skins.
He said Acholi culture has been so conscious about wildlife preservation and that most skins used at the festival were acquired long ago.

“Dance groups such as those from Madiopei or Patongo have been dancing since time immemorial and these dance artifacts are passed on from one generation to the next. The feathers you see them wearing on their heads are imported from South Africa,” he said.

When asked about specific sights of fresh wild animal skins observed during the event, the premier said those could have been killed from the several ungazetted hunting areas in Acholi.

“Remember there are still so many hunting grounds existing in Acholi region which are not gazetted as preservation areas, so if hunters or farmers kill such stray animals like monkeys, they can’t just throw away those skins but preserve them for dances,” Mr Olaa added.

According to UWA, it is illegal to kill or domesticate a wild animal unless authorised by the authority.

“Those skins of leopards and monkeys they put on whether they were got 50 years back, none of them hold the permit including the paramount chief,” Dr Enyel alleged.

Efforts to reach the Gulu Municipality Member of Parliament, Mr Lyandro Komakech, to confirm whether he has a UWA certificate to possess the two leopard skins he was covered in during the festival were futile.

Government plans
During the World Wildlife Day celebrated recently in Kasese District, Mr Daudi Migereko, the chairman of Uganda Tourism Board, said there are plans by government to create alternative economic activities for people living around conservation areas to save animals of the cat family.

“We want to create an awareness of the need to protect the cats as well as demarcate the land for national parks clearly. For those surviving on cat’s skin as a source of income, we shall create some economic empowerment so that they don’t think they can only survive by killing animals and selling their skins,” he said.

Mr Migereko said the hunters were only permitted to hunt animal species which were in excess but not the endangered ones.
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