Intl. J. of Mol. Evol. and Biodivers. 2014, Vol. 4, No. 2, 1-8
1
Research Report Open Access
Ethnozoological Study of Traditional Medicinal Animals Used by the Kore
People in Amaro Woreda, Southern Ethiopia
Dereje W. Yohannes , Meseret Chane
Department of Biology, College of Natural and Computational Sciences, Dilla University, Ethiopia
Corresponding author email
International Journal of Molecular Evolution and Biodiversity, 2014, Vol.4, No.2 doi: 10.5376/ijmeb.2014.04.0002
Received: 10 Dec., 2014
Accepted: 16 Jan., 2015
Published: 21 Jan., 2015
© 2014 Dereje and Chane, This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted
use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article:
Dereje and Chane, 2014, Ethnozoological Study of Traditional Medicinal Animals Used by the Kore People in Amaro Woreda, Southern Ethiopia, International
Journal of Molecular Evolution and Biodiversity, Vol.4, No.2, 1-9
(doi
Abstract
A total of 90 people (practitioners) were interviewed from 15 kebeles. 25% of the respondents were female and 75% were
male respondents. Questioners were also randomly distributed among selected government employees working in different offices. A
total of 60 people (90% male and 10% female) were interviewed using semi-structured questionnaire. Independent samples t-test to
compare means of quantitative data between male and female informants were computed using SPSS version 20. Chi-square test was
computed to see the significance of relationship between qualitative data. Fidelity Level (FL) and Relative Importance (RI) value
were used to analyze species preference and importance. A total of 21 animal species were used to prepare remedies for 46 ailments;
14 (66.64%) were mammals, 3 (14.28%) were reptiles and 4 (19.04%) were birds. Among the different animal body parts used for
remedial preparation, flesh has the highest proportion (33.8%), followed by fat (11.5 %), bone (8.6%) and blood (8.6%). Stomach
pain is the most frequently reported ailments with a frequency of 11.29% followed by wound (9.23%) and rheumatism (5.81%). The
highest number of informants (27.3%) prepared the traditional remedies by cooking, 18% by mixing and 15.8% by heating. The large
proportions of the drug (69.8%) are administered orally, 21.6% dermal, nasal (7.2%) and ear canal (1.4%). The study revealed that
there is significant variation in the mean number of species used by male and female informant (
p
<0.05). The mean number of
species used by male informants was 5.6 + 1.15 and by female informants was 2.6 + 0.73. Next to python, warthog has the highest RI
index (0.8942) followed by crested porcupine (0.789) and bushpig (0.6838). Species which have a FL of 100 for the most
frequently reported ailments are crested porcupine, Hare, Klipspringer, Leopard tortoise, Mourning dove and Rabbit. There was a
significant association between academic status and knowledge of zoonotic diseases. The association was significant (
p
< 0.05). From
the total population of urban informants (government office employees), 37 (30 male and 7 female) (61.7%) individuals used
traditional medicine and the rest 23 (38.3%) (21 male and 2 female) do not used traditional medicine. Chi-Square Test revealed that
there is no significant relationship between sex and use of traditional medicine (
p
>0.05).
Keywords
Zootherapy; Ailments; Animal products; Traditional remedies; Amaro woreda
Introduction
People living in developing countries have relied on
traditional medicinal systems to keep their well-being
for thousands of years (Li et al., 2008; Robinson and
Zhang, 2011). According to WHO (2002), majority of
people (about 80%) living in developing countries use
traditional medicine for treatment of different types of
illness and diseases. Asia, Africa, Latin America and
the Middle East countries are with the largest
contributors of such practitioners (WHO, 2002;
Robinson and Zhang, 2011).
The global contribution of plant parts and products in
traditional medicine is enormous. However, animal
parts and products constitute important elements of
the medical practices (Alves and Rosa, 2005;
Alakbarli, 2006).
Ethnozoology is the branch of ethnobiology, which
deals with the study of relationship between the
human societies and the animal resources around them
(Jaroli et al., 2010). Zootherapy is defined as the
practice of treating human diseases by the use of
therapeutics obtained or ultimately derived from
animals (Costa Neto, 1999). Zootherapy is an
important component of ethnozoology.
As compared to medicinal plant research, only little
