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Examples
Bushmeat species include apes, other primates, ungulates, rodents, and birds. The species hunted depend on the geographical area, e.g. no apes in the Americas, and preferences and taboos of the hunters.
Hunting
Bushmeat hunting is common in sub-Saharan Africa's dense forests. The bushmeat trade refers to the sale of any wild species, though Western sources tend to focus on the trade specifically involving great apes. Bushmeat hunters have been targeting the gorilla, chimpanzee, and bonobo, as well as other primate species, which has distressed many conservationists and advocates of animal rights and great ape personhood.
The issue of bushmeat hunting is highly politicized, with little support for the practice outside the African forests and cities where it is conducted. International efforts to stop it have been launched, especially in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. In the countries where the hunting occurs, orphaned apes (deemed unable to survive on their own, but also deemed too small to be worth shooting and cutting up, to the hunters) are raised and returned to the wild as part of these efforts.
In Cameroon, where gorilla populations are especially endangered, the Wildlife Protectors Fund launched an education campaign to teach children about Koko the gorilla, who is part of a long-term psychology experiment in an American research sanctuary. As awareness of the intelligence of gorilla species and their ability to express feelings and care for other animals spread, local support for gorilla hunting dropped.
Factors
Logging concessions operated by European and Malaysian companies in African forests have been closely linked to the bushmeat trade. Because they provide roads, trucks and other access to remote forests, they are the primary means for the transportation of hunters and meat between forests and urban centres. Some, including the Congolaise Industrielle du Bois (CIB) in Republic of Congo, have partnered with governments and international conservation organizations to regulate the bushmeat trade within the concessions where they operate. Numerous solutions are needed; because each country has different circumstances, traditions and laws, no one solution will work in every location.
Many conservation organizations have come together to address the bushmeat crisis through the formation of the Bushmeat Crisis Task Force, whose mission is to build a public, professional and government constituency aimed at identifying and supporting solutions that effectively respond to the bushmeat crisis in Africa and around the world.
Effect on Great Apes
Some species are legal to hunt and not endangered, and some are not. Only about 1% of the bushmeat trade is in ape meat. However, the apes' small numbers and the attractiveness of hunting them (being a large animal, a gorilla can offer a good "payoff" for each cartridge) means the impact on hunting them is considerable. Orphans of the bushmeat trade are often sold as pets, as young apes do not have enough meat on them to eat. The Pan African Sanctuary Alliance (PASA) is a member organization of sanctuaries that provide care for bushmeat orphans and education for local communities.
Armed conflict has a direct impact on the killing of great apes for bushmeat. This is largely because the widespread availability of automatic rifles and the breakdown of law and order. A well documented case was the killing and eating of mountain gorillas during the military insurrection around Virunga National Park in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in January 2007.
Apes reproduce relatively slowly, at about one-fourth the rate of most other mammals. A study in Gabon, the wealthiest country in the region with 80% of its forest cover still in place, showed that it had suffered at least a 56% decline in its ape population over seventeen years.
Role in African diseases of humans
- Apes harbour pathogens that also affect humans. Ebola for instance is endemic in chimps and gorillas, and might spread to humans during the butchering and hunting of such animals. One of the many hypotheses that attempt to explain how HIV crossed over to humans is that the virus passed into people by this hunting or butchering of an ape, most probably a chimpanzee or gorilla. Butchering involves prolonged contact with the tissues and fluids of the animal. The virus could have infected a human through a break in the skin or a mucous membrane.
- African squirrels (Heliosciurus, Funisciurus) have been implicated as reservoirs of the monkeypox virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and their use as bushmeat may be an important means of transmission to humans.
Efforts at eradication
The bushmeat trade is considered by some anti-globalization activists to be one of many ways in which globalization affects life on the planet, due to the lumber trade (as described in the Factors section above). There is no way (other than by researching the corporations involved, or their countries of origin) to tell which lumber has been produced in a way that assists the hunting of apes, and which has not. It has been suggested that the only way to eliminate the bushmeat trade might be industry-specific protocols, along the lines of the Cocoa Protocol. Although some argue against Western interference with African culture, claiming that the West should take a value-neutral perspective on eating apes, many African cultures greatly respect or fear apes, and frown on their consumption. Some have suggested that the economic incentive to hunt bushmeat has led to an erosion of these traditional values, and that Western interference is therefore appropriate.[1]
It has also been proposed by Dr. Peter Arcese, an associate professor of forest sciences at the University of British Columbia, that farming infrastructure needs to be created and the international exploitation of African fisheries needs to stop. The fisheries are being overfished by mainly EU-subsidized fleets and could collapse within a few decades. Reduced fishery landings in Africa increase demand for bushmeat, which is leading many species to face extinction, and a humanitarian crisis could easily follow. In some locations the biomass of mammals in parks has been reduced by 70% since 1967 because of bushmeat harvesting. Since wildlife monitoring is limited to a few countries the full extent and future outlook of bushmeat is not currently known. [2]
See also
- Ape extinction
- Hunting
- Endangered species
- Cane Rat
- Greater Cane Rat
- Gambian Pouch Rat
- Hunter-gatherer
- Illegal logging
- Overfishing
- Bushfood
- Africa
- Roadkill
References
- ^ a b Joseph Alcamo, Rashid Hassan, Robert Scholes, Neville Ash, Steve R. Carpenter, Prabhu L. Pingali, Elena M. Bennett, Monika B. Zurek, Kanchan Chopra, Rik Leemans, Pushpam Kumar, Henk Simons, Doris Capistrano, Cristián Samper K., Marcus J. LeeSummaryPreview this bookBy Joseph Alcamo, Rashid Hassan, Robert Scholes, Neville Ash, Steve R. Carpenter, Prabhu L. Pingali, Elena M. Bennett, Monika B. Zurek, Kanchan Chopra, Rik Leemans, PushpamKumar, Henk Simons, Doris Capistrano, Cristián Samper K., Marcus J. Lee. Ecosystems and human well-being. Island Press, 407. ISBN 1559632283.
- ^ "Bushmeat". CBC Radio (2004-11-27). Retrieved on 2007-02-21.
External links
- Bushmeat Crisis Task Force
- Blog on bonobos and busmeat in Congo
- Bushmeat Trade - Threat of Primate Extinction : Save The Primates
- The Bushmeat Research Programme of the Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London
- The bushmeat trade. POSTnote 236. Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, UK.
- Ape Alliance - Bushmeat Working Group
- Pan African Sanctuaries Alliance
- BBC News article about trying to prevent the illegal import of Bushmeat to the UK
- Bushmeat Briefings
- Photographs of bushmeat from KarlAmmann.com
- Oil and Bushmeat
- Bush Meat Campaign
- Bushmeat is commonly taken back to the towns after rural visits in Africa
- The wildlife trade monitoring network
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