ISLAMABAD: The donkeys population increased by one hundred thousand during the last two years, while horses, camels and mules remained completely stagnant, reveals the Economic Survey 2015-16.

In the five-year tenure of the PPP-led coalition government, donkeys population increased by four hundred thousand.Interestingly, President General (retd) Pervez Musharraf took a decade to add six hundred thousand donkeys, while the democratic government before the military takeover took only two years to add the same number to their total population in 1999. The number of horses, camels and mules remained stagnant at 0.4 million, one million and 0.2 million respectively.

Donkeys’ population increased from 4.5 million in 2008-09 to 5 million in 2014-15. In 1997-98, their number was 3.2 million and 3.8 million in 1999-00. The number of horses in previous two governments of Nawaz Sharif and Pervaiz Musharraf remained stagnant at 0.3 million but once the general handed the government over to the democratic government, the number increased to 0.4 million and is still stagnant at the same number.

During last two years, the number of buffalos increased by one million to 35.6 million. During the PPP government, buffalos increased by 4.7 million to 34.6 million, goats’ population increased by 1.8 million to 68.4 million, and sheep by 300,000 to 29.4 million.

