The Sardinian (, or ) is an Italian

breed A breed is a specific group of breedable domestic animals having homogeneous appearance (phenotype), homogeneous behavior, and/or other characteristics that distinguish it from other organisms of the same species. In literature, there exist seve ...

donkey The donkey or ass is a domesticated equine. It derives from the African wild ass, ''Equus africanus'', and may be classified either as a subspecies thereof, ''Equus africanus asinus'', or as a separate species, ''Equus asinus''. It was domes ...

from the Mediterranean island of

Sardinia Sardinia ( ; ; ) is the Mediterranean islands#By area, second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, and one of the Regions of Italy, twenty regions of Italy. It is located west of the Italian Peninsula, north of Tunisia an ...

, to the west of Italy. It is raised throughout the island; there are also some small populations in mainland Italy. It is one of the eight

autochthonous Autochthon, autochthons or autochthonous may refer to: Nature * Autochthon (geology), a sediment or rock that can be found at its site of formation or deposition * Autochthon (nature), or landrace, an indigenous animal or plant * Autochthonou ...

donkey breeds of limited distribution recognised by the

Ministero delle Politiche Agricole Alimentari e Forestali The Ministry of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forests (), or MASAF, is an Italian government department. It was formed in 1946 as the Ministero dell'Agricoltura e delle Foreste ("Ministry of Agriculture and Forests"), and following the refe ...

, the Italian ministry of agriculture and forestry. Its

conservation status The conservation status of a group of organisms (for instance, a species) indicates whether the group still exists and how likely the group is to become extinct in the near future. Many factors are taken into account when assessing conservation ...

was listed as 'endangered' by the

FAO The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; . (FAO) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger and improve nutrition ...

in 2007 and as 'at risk/endangered' in

DAD-IS DAD-IS is the acronym for the Domestic Animal Diversity Information System, a tool developed and maintained by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations as a part of its programme for management of animal genetic resources for ...

in 2024. The breeding population reported for 2022 numbered just over head, with jennies and jacks in 788 herds.

References

Donkey breeds originating in Italy Donkey breeds Sardinia {{Italy-stub