There are six wild donkey breeds in Asia, namely the Mongolian wild donkey, the Turkmen wild donkey, the Persian wild donkey, the Indian wild donkey, the Tibetan wild donkey and the Syrian wild donkey. Among them, the Tibetan wild donkey has the largest number and the best protection, followed by the Mongolian wild donkey and the Indian wild donkey, the Turkmen wild donkey and the Persian wild donkey are endangered species, and the most unfortunate of them is the Syrian wild donkey.
The Syrian wild ass is also the most tragic cause of extinction in history, living on barren land but being extinct by the French colonists' armies with cannons.
The Syrian wild donkey lives mainly on the plateau of northeastern Syria, where the land is poor and sparsely populated, but there is a suitable soil for the wild donkey to survive. Syrian wild donkeys once lived in herds in highland meadows, generally living in groups based on female donkeys, and the young male donkeys were driven out of the family when they reached adulthood. During the spring and summer breeding season, the wandering male donkeys always have to decide between themselves, and the victorious male donkey leader duels with the male donkey who owns the female donkey, and the victorious side takes possession of the female donkey.
In summer, Syrian wild donkeys live in small groups as families, and in autumn and winter, they automatically gather in large groups of hundreds of them to wander the plateau, they are good at migrating, have good endurance, and can walk sixty kilometers a day in search of food. In general, stray male donkeys guard the perimeter of the group, followed by small family units, and the cubs are usually located in the middle, which is conducive to defending against syrian wolves.
Because the Syrian wild donkey has good endurance, it has been living in harmony with the local population since ancient times, and the local people have domesticated some of the Syrian wild donkeys as the main means of transportation and agricultural assistants, and the local people's material transportation mainly relies on donkeys to complete.
During World War I, the French invaded Syria in an attempt to make syria their colony, provoking fierce resistance from the natives, some of whom insisted on fighting on the plateau, using domesticated wild donkeys to transport supplies, support their resistance, and hunt some of them for food. Therefore, the French invading army carried out a large-scale hunting of Syrian wild donkeys, in the early days, they hunted wild donkeys with machine guns, and later found that the efficiency was too low, just where the wild donkeys were concentrated, bombarded with cannons, and soon, the Syrian wild donkeys disappeared into the Syrian plateau.
A small number of Syrian wild donkeys were captured after being injured and sent to zoos across France for exhibition, but unfortunately, due to no effective breeding program, the last Syrian wild donkey died in a zoo in Vienna in 1928.
At this time, the romantic French began to notice this animal with a tragic fate, and they organized a solemn funeral for the last dead Syrian wild donkey, and finally disappeared under the raging flames, leaving no final specimen.
The Syrian wild ass is one of the most typical animals extinct by modern colonists, and together with passenger pigeons, great auks, Antarctic wolves, great cattle, dodo, barbaric lions, spotted donkeys and other animals that were exterminated by the colonizers by despicable means, they denounced the hypocrisy of the colonists with the imprint of life.