Went to the desert with my uncle last friday, thought i should.share some pics.
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The entire land belongs to the government. They fenced it to a certain limit after a tragic incident in which three local residents ventured too deep into the desert, lost their way, and their bodies were discovered two days later. They died due to dehydration in temperatures reaching 50 degrees Celsius. Ever since, the fencing has been in place.
We stayed there until 10 pm, and the lowest temperature was 20 degrees Celsius—far from freezing. The lowest it gets here is around 7 to 9 degrees Celsius in December or January, here in Riyadh. It used to drop to 1 or 2 degrees Celsius a decade ago, but global warming has made that impossible in recent years. Only a few parts of KSA experience snow.
Thanks for the explanation; that fence is interesting. It looks like a monumental undertaking to put something like that in place to protect the local population from themselves. The height, the barbed/razor-wire, and it appears to have a full-length concrete foundation? Wow...looks more like something out of Jurassic Park...or maybe out of a post-Walking-Dead type of scenario.
The incident you described is indeed tragic...but a big part of the tragedy is that people who live in an area like that need to be not only told but actually restrained from venturing out into the wild without safety precautions.
What's the local feeling towards that fence? Positive or negative? I wouldn't want to live even on the outside of it anywhere close enough to actually see it, much less inside of it.
How about those wild dogs; are they feral domestic dogs, or some naturally-occurring type of canid?
The incident you described is indeed tragic...but a big part of the tragedy is that people who live in an area like that need to be not only told but actually restrained from venturing out into the wild without safety precautions.
What's the local feeling towards that fence? Positive or negative? I wouldn't want to live even on the outside of it anywhere close enough to actually see it, much less inside of it.
How about those wild dogs; are they feral domestic dogs, or some naturally-occurring type of canid?
All the fence pillars are deeply fixed into the rocky ground, which keeps them stable. The desert here is a mix of sand and rugged terrain, although the rugged terrain is more dominant, especially in this area, making installation easier on the rocky ground.
It's a rare occurrence—one in a million—but yes, no one usually ventures that deep. Unfortunately, they did, and the government should have taken precautions earlier to prevent such incidents, but they didn't. One thing to keep in mind is that the area they ventured in was extremely far away from residential zones and other well-traveled desert spots, so people rarely go that far.
Locals don’t mind it at all, especially considering how much space they still have even with the fence. All they need is a secluded spot with some privacy, which is easy to find in this huge fenced area.
One more thing to clarify: some desert areas closer to residential zones, especially those that aren’t vast and end relatively quickly, aren’t fenced. However, this particular spot is far away from any residential area, which is why the extra precautions were taken.
Apparently these dogs are feral domestic dogs , which are the descendants of domesticated dogs dogs which became used to living on streets as they were abandoned.
