Bushmeat Totally Explained

Everything about Bushmeat totally explained

Bushmeat (calque from the French viande de brousse) is the term commonly used for meat of terrestrial wild animals, killed for subsistence or commercial purposes throughout the humid tropics of the Americas, Asia and Africa. However, originally the term was only used to describe the hunting of wild animals in West and Central Africa. To reflect the global nature of hunting of wild animals Resolution 2.64 of the IUCN General Assembly in Amman (October 2000) referred to wild meat rather than bushmeat. A more worldwide term is game; see that article for a fuller description. The term bushmeat crisis tends to be used to describe unsustainable hunting of wildlife in West and Central Africa or the humid tropics (rainforest), depending on interpretation. African hunting predates recorded history; by 2007 it had become an international issue.

Examples

Bushmeat species include apes, other primates, ungulates, rodents, and birds. The species hunted depend on the geographical area, for example 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's 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're 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 don't 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.

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